A comment on my Hindi film music post from Kush Tandon earlier in the week got me thinking:
Where do you buy India/ Bollywood music in electronic from? I have browsed Rhapsody, they seem decent. I could not find much on iTunes. Is there some other place too?
Or is it all pirated and/ or through buddies?
No one responded to the comment at the time — is it because everyone is in fact downloading pirated desi music and films over the internet, and they’re not sure they should admit it?
There are a number of good explanations for why downloading is popular. First, not everyone lives near an Indo-Pak grocery/music store, and a lot of Desi stores aren’t very serious about getting current music, or a broad range of it. Second, so much of the music is kind of crappy and derivative to begin with (Hindi film producers often borrow bass-lines and samples from western or Arabic pop songs), so why worry about making sure the artist is adequately paid for his or her work?
Third, there’s never been any attempt from Indian record and film companies to crack down on downloads of their stuff in the diaspora. Grocery/music/video stores that sell pirated material are often raided, but there’s no desi equivalent of the RIAA or MPAA suing online pirates, or shutting down BitTorrent/filesharing sites. (Note: Kazaa just settled with American record companies for $100 million.)
And finally, there’s no desi equivalent of Itunes, where you can legally buy MP3 singles from CDs and be assured that your money is going to the label and the artist who made the music (any entrepeneurs out there? go for it, buddy).
What are your thoughts on piracy? Do you yourself download pirated music (note: if you normally use your real name in comments, here I would recommend an alias)? What is your “piracy to legal consumption” ratio? Would you spend $1.00 a song if a desi version of Itunes were available?
A friend of mine in NYC is working on this exact thing.
Amardeep I sincerely don’t download music not so much for the piracy issue which I don’t really think about as much but it seems wrong to take music I didn’t pay for. But let me clarify. I will share music I’ve bought with friends and vice versa. I will either ask my cousins from India to send music or get whatever I can in Jackson Heights. But I don’t go out of my way to get music I didn’t really pay for unless it’s someone I know who paid for it and it comes straight from a CD they bought. I’m very uncomfortable downloading from sources I don’t trust or strangers so I just don’t. I would absolutely spend a buck a song if there was an iTunes version for desi music if it allowed me to sample the music. As it is I stick only my favorite songs from all the albums I own on my iPod so I would do the same with desi music.
I don’t illegally download desi music. However, I rarely buy CDs. I usually ask others who have bought the latest CDs (friends, family, etc.) to burn me a copy, which in turn I download onto my iPod.
And I might spend $1.00 a song, thought my “system” is much cheaper.
Thanks for starting us off, JoaT.
By the way, I wanted to be clear to everyone that I’m not judging anyone — I’m just curious to know more about readers’ habits, and wanted to open up a space for people to talk about it.
Manish, tell your friend to hurry up! 😉
Artists steal from artists, sure. India steals from Pakistan and vice versa. You forgot one more reason: most desi music, be it on the streets of Karachi, Bombay, Chicago or New York, is pirated anyway. The recording companies and generally cd manufacturers steal from eachother.
Is that really true?
One more thing: my consumption of music far surpasses my ability to afford all of it. I just like music too much to let that stop me.
Yes — The only way to tell a pirate from an original sometmes is to look for the ‘hologram’ seal. SaReGaMa CDs at least have a hologram that for whatever reason pirates don’t try and copy. At the store I used to go to in New Jersey, the shopkeeper would peer at each CD I brought to the counter. If it didn’t have the seal, it was $5 (i.e., because it’s pirated). If it did, it was $7 or $10.
I haven’t heard much about recording companies and cd manufacturers stealing from each other.
I’ve used Itunes, they do have a few desi songs. I was surprised to see that that a few Tamil songs from the 70s were on Itunes. I have no problem paying to download songs and I wish Raaga.com had that option. The post on Omkara’s music got me all excited and I spent ages listening to music on Raaga, but none of it was available on Itunes.
Here are my thoughts on illegal downloading, regardless of genre. If you’re rich and famous, someone like Rahman or U2, you’ve already got a gagillion dollars and I really don’t care if downloading costs you another gagillion. If you’re a nobody like me, who has music on line, then the illegal downloading doesn’t matter because it’s more important to have people hear my music than earn the $200 or so that I’ve lost. The people who really get hurt are those somewhere in between. These are the artists that have a strong local or regional following and might sell 2-10,000 cds. These people are hurt because the downloading does represent a significant amount of money and they generally don’t have a gagillion dollars.
Ok so I don’t really know about India, but I’m guessing it’s not too different from what goes on in Pakistan. Even in those places where local (Pakistani) music is kept legit, Indian music is sold in mass quantities as cds and mp3cds and vcds and music video dvds. And cassettes. I’ve seen Indian stores in Chicago, NY and LA all carry pirated stuff.
So the $5 copy of Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna I bought in Jackson Heights last weekend was probably pirated, huh?
I’ve never looked for these on Indian CDs because I didn’t know they existed, but will now. Not that it would really stop me from buying the other stuff if it’s only available in that form but I feel a little in control of my choices.
Yes, but the stores are occasionally raided by the police, on the insistence of Indian distributors like Eros. The manager of one place I talked to awhile ago mentioned that he had begun to be very careful since some of his friends’ stores had been raided recently.
The recording industry has long bilked the common man from his dollar by selling overpriced CDs. An opportunity has presented itself to stick it to them, and I say we all go for it. People may say this logic is unsound, this person clearly didn’t spend $18.99 for a Vanilla Ice CD with one good song on it, and 15 tracks that say “yo yo word to yo moms and the sticky d fibber.,heeeel yeeaa”
They can keep suing companies like Napster, Kazaa, etc.. but more will just come up in their place. I believe all songs should be downloaded and exchanged freely at will.
probably just the well-known ones or those that are clustered together, like chitown’s devon street. if it’s so hard in the US imagine how laughable it is when they occasinally crack down on it in pakistan. rainbow center in karachi will never die.
besides, there’s always the net.
in related news, I just bought a 320gb drive. 😀
In jersey city, most of the indian movie rental stores were raided starting of this year. They took all the VHS, tapes and CDs, basically leaving them with an empty room.
to get music online sites like kazaa(which no longer is going to be free after this week’s trial came to end with Kazaa paying music companies like $100 million) Limewire, DC++ are there.
i just order my cds whenever someone goes to India or London(for good punjabi music). But its even worse over there with all the Vcds and whatnot
Seriously. I’m too broke to buy it all. And no, I am not spending all that $ on shoes, damn it.
On another note… There was an Indian “mela” in the Curry Hill area a few weeks back, and this dude had a huge booth with a massive sound system, and it seemed like 85% of what he was selling at 2-for-$10 (Water ?!?!) was pirated. This was not a “dismantle your cardboard table when you see the cops” situation, either.
I’ll be honest – if it’s an artist/group that’s more independent, I’ll make sure to buy their CD, even if I get the songs initially in other forms. However, if it’s Hindi music, I really don’t give a crap. I can go to a store and buy the CD for $5 (which will be pirated), I can ask a friend for the songs, or I can download them online for free.
I went on a trip to India and anytime I asked someone to take me CD shopping, I wound up at shady places where I knew there was a guy sitting in the back just burning CD’s all day. It’s horrible.
while on the topic how about ringtones for cell phones? now that we can share them by using bluetooth. Why would i pay $1.99 for a tone that my friend has already. Some phone companies do “lock” their ringtones so that you cant transfer them but kids still find a way around it. Now if somebody can tell me how I can get this song to set as my ringtone, it’ll be really helpful. I hate reading manuals
“This was not a “dismantle your cardboard table when you see the cops” situation, either.”
or fold your rug for that matter
Would you spend $1.00 a song if a desi version of Itunes were available?
I would. Thanks Amardeep.
In light of some of the plots that they use, for Bollywood to complain about piracy is absurd 🙂
On a more serious note, I’d like to see a breakdown of how much “artists” are actually getting paid for this music before I take claims about artists’ rights seriously. I would like to see a Bollywood equivalent of this stunning piece from the Baffler about how much artists actually make. In fact, I’d like to see an updated piece on the American music industry.
-s
well 1 buck for a song is not too big a deal for us out here … but if you sell a song for 50 rs. in india, would you ever buy it ? i think not ! its just geography and economics combined … for 50 bux, you would get an mp3 having arnd songs from 20-25 movies … which one would be more viable ? anyways the recording companies charge a premium .. with only one or 2 good tracks on an entire album ! gone are those days when you would get albums like bombay or roja … speaking of good ones, checking out omkara and not disappointing at all … guess its time to buy/borrow a cd 😀
For those of you that have Verizon & like music on your cell phones, VCAST has some Indian artists. I didn’t recognize a grand majority of stuff on there, but I did notice that they had the soundtrack to Kabhie Alvida Na Kehna on there. They are charging $1.99 per song.
I don’t listen to much post-98 desi stuff but here are my habits in general:
I download music rabidly, according to Canadian law not necessarily illegally. As yet. I don’t buy or use CDs. In Dubai in the 90s, CDs were terribly expensive. Plus, less popular artists sold for higher amounts for some strange reason. I remember wanting to buy a Portishead CD and being asked to pay around $32 Canadian for it! Instead I took to using and cutting tapes with tunes offa the radio and friends. There were also more pirated tapes being sold at that time than CDs, the selection wasn’t great for non-Desi stuff but at least they were cheap.
In 99 I started using Napster, then came Audiogalaxy, now I use soulseek to download all my music. If I love an as-yet obscure artist, after having listened to a downloaded album, then I will buy the album from them directly. I do not make money off downloading music. I do not sell the music I’ve collected. I do make it heard though. And the tune I told my friend about the other day and he told his friend about who told her friend who is a DJ and who ultimately paid $20 for the record and played it at a venue and everyone wondered who that was and they found out and some went to buy the CD while others dished money to see the act live? Yea, that tune would’ve gone nowhere fast without free downloading.
i meant mp3 cd with songs from 20-25 movies
I’ve bought desi music CDs from back home, downloaded a lot illegally from Kazaa, but also swap MP3s and songs recorded from CDs with my sibs and cousins. Equal-opportunity, I am. I probably wouldn’t pay $1 per download for a song unless I reaaaaallly wanted it, because I know I can always get the CD for Rs. 200 or so at home!
Essactly.
As an aside, I have a few invites for desitorrents.com. Anyone who’d like one, email me.
Now back to the debate. You were saying…
an article about recent music industry changes
Well, downloading music from the net is one activity that most of us are guilty of.
Indian music companies will have to adapt themselves to this trend and lower their production costs. An ITUNES store in India will have limited success. Yes, there will be people who will buy the music from the store but a great many Indians are simply distrustful of transactions over the net.
Masale,
i want an invite to desitorrents
thank you
I’ve used cooltoad.com to download a ton of desi music. they have a lot of variety — not only hindi/bollywood stuff, but also a good amount of other regional music. sometimes the quality of mp3s is pretty hit or miss, but hey, it’s free [and likely illegal. oh well.]
Jeet, nice article.
This paragraph caught my eye:
This might actually work better than an Indian Itunes, especially if they can sort out the technological issues (3G access via cell phone — versions of ‘VCast’ — might turn out to be the ticket).
As for piracy to legal consumption ratio..I would say 70-30. But I have stopped downloading or buying music. I have Zeppelin, Beatles, Floyd, The Who, Purple, Doors and Rehman with me..not really into new Hindi or English music 🙂
I was just checking Raaga.com, now you can download songs there. Not everything is available for download, but a large collection is and its $.99 from here and Rs.12 from India. Now if I can find a proxy server in India, I will be all set ;-).
It is more complicated than this as far as indian music industry is concerned. I would talk about the telugu movie industry which makes quite some money (surprisingly comparable to hindi movie industry as a whole (all movies put together)).
The reason why the telugu movie industry cracks down on the movie shops but not for music is that the music industry itself pirates and releases to the market these pirated cds and cuts through the tax hazzle. If the music is a major hit the first phase would be legal in which most of music buyers buy the music. In the second phase, they release the pirated stuff into market, on this the production cost will be lot less and they dont have to pay any tax and all the money goes into the pocket and they manage some how to get this back to white some thing i didnt understand well.
Yes in india there is a lot of crackdown on telugu movie piracy but not on telugu music. Here in US one of the distributors was worried about movie piracy but not music piracy even though he owned the rights !
Folks, please don’t post links to filesharing sites.
Brilliant! Absolutely true. I think 10 years down the line..the dangling carrot and the parameter of success for every thing is going to be the mobile phone. Everything is converging onto that one single device.
I take that back. You can only download tamil songs for now. The come with DRM and can be burned twice. I do not see any info on other languages, but I am sure that they are working on it.
Thats the whole point! If people can download music leagally, and if the process is easier then pirating it, then people will go for it. Hopefully the music will be DRM free, or atleast a flexible DRM.
Kunjan:
Not at raaga Raaga
Why is that in NYC, which is supposed to care deeply about piracy and international property rights and the scourge of knockoffs, etc.–why is that in the bowels of the subway station below the CitiGroup Building on 51st and Lex, heavily patrolled by police since it’s been declared a prime terrorism target, you can buy pirated DVDs for $5 from Ecuadoran and Guatemalan women who spread their wares on those lovely Andean alpaca wool blankets?
I’m old school and shop at Shrimati’s and Bombay Music in Berkeley. Shrimati’s is very proud of verifying authenticity.
OK is it just me or are there others out there that have no problem picking one of the 40 ringtones in your phone and living with it? I find some of the song ringtones people have seriously irritating at times.
This will sound lame to you but it’s gods honest truth. It’s different task forces. The ones for patrol and vigilance are usually handled by Manhattan north which only does surveillance and the ones that raid and take stuff away like in Chinatown for example are guys that work with the local FBI offices and are generally handled by Manhattan South. The two don’t cross into each others turf. Same with drug busts, completely different agencies headed up differently and they generally work with ATF and FBI as well. All albeit under NYPD.
my phone is always on vibrate as I am almost deaf and no ringtone can get my attention, I was just raising an issue. Song ringtones are mostly annoying, the worse i’ve heard was the latest movie Nacho Libre and it went something like “naaaaaaaaaaachoooooooooo” in Jack Blacks voice. Yup, the reason why i am almost deaf.
Itunes is constantly adding to their desi tunes selection, but my main gripe is that it’s hard to sift through their interface to find them because they don’t have a “bollywood” category; half of the albums wind up in the soundtrack category and the other half in world music. (and yes, I have emailed them about this)
A lot of artists (Alms for Shanti, Apache Indian) have just bypassed Itunes altogether and make their own material available for purchase and/or download, directly at their own websites. I’d gladly cough up a buck or 2 for JOSH’s remix of “Promiscuous Girl” if they made it available through their website or another channel.
In general, I won’t patronize any establishment that doesn’t clearly indicate that all of their product (CD, DVD) is “official”. I made the mistake ONCE of buying a DVD in Jackson Hts at some shady little shop– 45 minutes of the damn movie was missing, and all the songs were sped up. And that’s what I get for thinking I got a great deal with a $10 DVD…
I’m more than happy to pay for my music, especially as it’s what put food on my table for so many years, but a lot of the problem is that music isn’t seen as something with value, in our culture. It seems to be perceived as something like oxygen– it’s just out there and thus should be free. Until we give our artists respect, they will continue to be fleeced in the marketplace.