Subscription Music : a win-win solution for artists and music lovers
I used to be a regular visitor of music stores like Music World. Going to the music store, listening to some new music and buy some CDs used to be my routine once every fortnight. Ever since the ‘torrent’ revolution started, the same music stores remind me of ‘ghost stores’. Ever since the ‘torrent’ revolution started, quality of music in movies has drastically reduced. Given that people hardly buy music, there is no point in spending a fortune in creating quality music, right? Indipop music is not like how it used to be back in 90’s and early 2000s. Producers are losing interest in the art of music. People are not ready to buy music. We are not ready to buy music. We started taking music for granted, for free, from torrents illegally. We get furious if someone steals our door mat and yet day in, day out, we steal music, movies, games. If the music labels started searching every house in one city, say Bangalore, and start arresting the offenders and jails across India will run at 100% occupancy. I strongly believe that is it time for us to turn the tide! It is time to adopt music subscription services. Price we pay to get access to 30 million songs is less than the price we pay to get a medium pizza.
The best way to do this is by paying for ‘Streaming Music’ or atleast listen to music on ad powered subscriptions services which are free. I have moved from listening to music purchased via iTunes to Rdio subscription service and I have started trial of Apple iTunes Music and trust me, they are awesome. WIth 30 million music catalogue and offline storage feature, you never ever ever have to think about opening those torrent sites again.
What is a subscription service?
This is a business model employed by brands like Rdio, Saavn, Spotify, Tidal, Gaana, Wynk where one pays monthly subscription feel (usually around 120/- rupees) and get access to all music that is provided by the service. Some of these have over 30 million songs.
How does this help?
On iTunes music store, each song costs costs around 12/- rupees. This means that if you want to purchase an album that has 10 songs, you will spend 120/- rupees and you only get one album for which you have paid money. With subscriptoin service, you pay for the service and not for album or song.
Some services offer free music playback. You dont have a pay anything. Some limit the number of songs while some place advertisements between songs. Either way, its a win-win situation.
How does this help music labels?
Industry standard is that these subscription services have to pay 58% of revenue generated from subscriptions to the record labels and additional 12% goes to publishers/songwriters.
What other features are offered by these services?
The beauty of these service is not the price of subscription. It is the curated music playlists. Each service employs curators (human and logic based algorithms) that create playlists (based on artist, mood, acitity, time of day, decade, charts, genre etc). Most services let you create and upload playlists which can then be listened to by other users. I have been using Rdio and 9 times out of 10, I listen to music using playlists/stations. When I like a song that I have not heard before, I opt to download the song to my phone. This way, over a period of time, I have a big enough offline collection of songs that I liked most that I can play when am not connected to network or when I dont want to use mobile data.
Also, unlike local music that you cannot play on other devices (unlike you stream from source), with subscription service, you get access to music from various devices. Apple went one step ahead by opting to upload all local music to iCloud.
Saavn and Rdio are free unless you opt for an ad-free model. Apple’s Music will work on iOS, OS X and Windows OS. iTunes Music will be free for 3 months (trial phase) after which you need to pay 120/- for one user and if you pay Rs.190/-, up to six people can enjoy unlimited music on their devices. I strongly suggest you to subscribe to these services and at least give it a try. You get to proudly say that you do not pirate music, you will have millions of songs at your finger tips, you can interact with other music lovers, get to experience amazing stations and curated playlists. The best part is that ‘artists earn money that they truly deserve’. TRY IT, ITS WORTH EVERY RUPEE YOU SPEND!
