Indian music streaming startup Dhingana shuts down over piracy challenges

Indian music streaming startup Dhingana has reportedly shut down owing to industry challenges like piracy and after its biggest partner, T-Series refused to renew their agreement.

Dhingana had been among the top-funded music startups in India and raised 7 million dollars in Series B funding in October last year.

According to Tech Crunch, music-streaming services in India are faced by challenges like working with music labels and lack of standardization in signing the agreements, and music piracy that costs Indian media and entertainment industry loses of about 4 billion dollars every year.

When T-Series refused to renew Dhingana's license for nearly 8,000 songs from the service's catalogue, it brought crisis to the company.

Meanwhile, services like Gaana.com, backed by Times Internet Ltd., and Saavn, the Spotify for Indian music, continue to survive and even expand their services, due to the enough funding they get and some innovative business models.

President of T-Series, Neeraj Kalyan said that the streaming business has to slowly move from free economy to paid economy, as sustainability of ad-supported revenue model is a big question mark, the report added.