Indian music labels gear-up for online sales

Over 25,000 songs will soon be available for download.

Music industry bigwigs like Sony BMG, Saregama India, T-Series have made a total of over 5 million tracks available on their own websites and other portals for full song downloads in a bid to monetise their content through the internet, and fight piracy.

Saregama India, for instance, has been test marketing the service for over two months now. By December end, it plans to make available 4.6 million tracks it has acquired, apart from the 0.3 million music tracks it owns under its banner.

The songs will be available on the company-owned website for around Rs 12 for five minutes. If the song exceeds the time, then users will have to pay an additional Rs 12 for every extra five minutes.

T-Series and Sony BMG too are in the race, and Tips is expected to soon join the pack. "Within a year, over 25,000 songs will be available for online download. We will look at a paid model. However, we are still working out the details," confirmed Kumar Taurani, managing director, Tips.

While some music companies have the tracks loaded on their own portals, others like T-Series and Sony BMG have their tracks available in association with other portals like MSN, Sony Connect, Hungama Mobiles among other portals. In most cases, the pricing for Internet downloads vary. The user can either download the entire album or a few songs.

Media experts opine that with digital distribution of music on the rise and the number of Internet subscribers growing rapidly, this is a logical extension for music companies.

The number of Internet subscribers is estimated to be anywhere between 35 to 50 million users, depending on whose numbers one goes by. Currently, 27 per cent of the total connections are broadband connections and are expected to account for 75 per cent of the connections by 2010.

Piracy, too, is a major headache for the Indian music industry, and is as high as 55 per cent, leading to losses of close to Rs 200 crore, according to PwC. In 2006, it notes, the total number of raids was over 250, during which nearly 1.4 million CDs and over 2 million VCDs were seized.

"While the traditional distribution system (CDs and cassettes) sales is affected by piracy, so is the online medium. As content owners, we need to legitimise as much as we can," said Gautam Sarkar, chief manager, new licensing media, Saregama India. Agrees Taurani: "We need to make music available at a lower cost and corrective measures need to be taken so that the illegal market does not eat in to the pie further, thus affect the business."

However, piracy and broadband connectivity are not the only issues music companies need to tackle. They have to change the mindset of users too.

"I'm so used to downloading music free of cost that a paid model hits my pocket since I download over 50 songs a week," said a user who wished not to be named for obvious reasons.

Media analysts feel that breaking this mindset is a major concern too. Music industry majors are taking steps to address these issues.

"We need to build awareness among users. This, by itself, will help curb priracy to some extent," says Bhushan Kumar, chairman and managing director, T-Series.

The industry is hopeful that cajoling users will help their case. However, tracking illegal downloads till then will continue to be a nightmare for the industry.

TRANSFER RATES

Size of the Indian music industry is expected to touch Rs 870 crore by 2011

Of the current Rs 740 crore music industry, Rs 670 crore comes from physical music sales, rest is contributed by digital music

Piracy in the Indian music industry is as high as 55 per cent, leading to losses of close to Rs 200 crore

In 2006 the total number of raids was over 250 during which nearly 1.4 million CDs and over 2 million VCDs were seized. Source: FICCI, PwC