Saregama puts 1.1-lakh-song library online for free listening

In a move that brings cheers to Indian music lovers across the globe, popular publishing label Saregama-HMV, has put up its entire library of 1.10 lakh songs in 14 languages online for streaming free and also downloading it at a nominal price.
"We have created an online store which will allow people to buy our content. For sampling, we are offering the entire length of the song rather than only in parts," the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group company managing director Vikram Mehra told PTI.
He said Saregama works with some of the popular online music streaming companies at present who act as a distributor for the content. With its own online store, it is going one step further and giving the consumers a chance to interact with it directly.

"Beyond this, it's been forcing people to indulge in piracy as they don't have a medium to access the collection. Even in piracy, there are chances that a person may not get a particular track or album which she is looking for," Mehra said, adding all this will be resolved through the store.
The users will be able to listen to all the tracks by streaming them for free, following which they can download a track by paying as low as Rs 9 per song.
"We are giving 10 downloads of a single song across multiple devices on a single ID on payment of Rs 9," he said, adding all the songs are on a high fidelity of 320 kbps, which maximises the quality.

Mehra said with the advances in speakers, people are getting frustrated by the low fidelity sound of 64kbps or 128 kbps.

Saregama is also working on launching a special service wherein users will be able to get uncompressed files for downloads by paying extra, Mehra said. He also said this may get launched by next month.
The online store is on a website at present and the company is also working on launching a smart-phone application which will allow for a seamless sampling and downloading, which will also be launched next month, he said.
Mehra said the company conducted a consumer research on the subject which led to the launch of this store.

The large Indian diaspora spread across the world will also be very interested in such a service, the research has shown, Mehra added.
He, however, declined to give any revenue expectations from the newly launched product.