A digital discourse

HIGH NOTES

Curiously enough, it's not unusual to hear the strains of a popular Bollywood hit or even an extremely traditional ghazal in the most unlikely of places these days.

Thanks to the ever-increasing number of mobile phones that double as personal boom boxes, you are, in a way, guaranteed a chart hit on every corner.

And that, for you, is the digital music boom everyone's talking about these days: the shift in format from heavy plastic compact discs to invisible digital files that can be shared and transferred in a matter of seconds over nothing but air.

The technology is awe-inspiring but the business of it is just riddled with hurdles and more.

The success of the digital music store iTunes in the West is a model that has yet to be emulated in India.

Presently, you will find it extremely difficult to find an online store in India where you can legally pay for and download music. There have been rumours of companies wanting to break into the online digital music business but nothing so far is worth mentioning.

Is this to say that no one downloads music in India? Of course, you already know that everyone downloads music. The only difference is that they don't pay for it. Which is wonderful in terms of music consumption and bad in terms of business. The only area where digital music is actually being sold in India is in the area of mobile ring tone downloads.

According to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), India has well over 100 million people using mobile phones in the country which is a number that continues to grow.

Telecom operators in India rate music services as among their most lucrative value-add services, thus making this form of digital music the most vital to the music industry in India.

It's encouraging to see that the digital music industry is growing rapidly through the sales of ring tones and their variations, but where does that leave the rest of the digital music industry? It's clear that the transition from physical to digital distribution in India has not been a very planned one.

In an industry where music CDs are priced out of the reach of your average music listener, it's not surprising to think that audiences will look at cheaper options available to satiate their musical needs.

Which is exactly what they have done and which is where the pirates and illegal download sites come in. In an industry lacking in alternatives, these have been the entities that have provided audiences with exactly what they want.

One of the most famous mistakes made by the global music industry was its initial clamping down on and filing cases against peer-to-peer sites from where people could download music for free.

Instead of embracing the new technology, the music industry (in its popular case with Napster) got into a long and detailed battle against digital music. This would be the first of many such battles that continue till today.

By now, of course, the music industry has come to terms with the ever-changing trends in music consumption and a few months ago the major, EMI Music, even announced that they would be making available DRM-free music in order to aid digital music sales. (Digital Rights Management "" a technology that restricts music from being transferred from one device to another.)

And so the global music industry has woken up to the idea that digital music is indeed the way forward to both sell music and promote music effectively.

The same thought, though, has a long way to travel in India where we see strikingly elaborate ads with celebrities sporting the newest music edition phones. Unfortunately for us, the music stored on these phones are either downloaded illegally, blue toothed or ripped "" but rarely bought.

(craig_fernandes@hotmail.com)