You cannot beat piracy and I have earlier argued that piracy actually benefits certain industries, especially in enabling discovery [tell me honestly if the Pink floyd song you listened for the first time in your college hostel was a pirated one or you really bought the song?].
The online music industry has been through many changes in the past (in terms of delivery/format), but one thing that has come out clearly is that there needs to be innovation in pricing and one needs to get out of clutches of blood sucking recording companies.
Last year, Indian Ocean poked at Recording companies and decided to give away their latest album, 16/330 Khajoor Road for free.
A lot of people are curious as to why we want to give away the music free. Firstly, this greatly reduces the distance between the band and its listeners. A lot of people (specially younger people!) do not buy music any more but rip or download from the web, so we want to make their lives a little guilt-free!
In addition, this means no more negotiating contracts with record companies and fighting over copyright issues, no worries about bad distribution, albums not being available at different places and so on. Also, very frankly, no Indian artist survives on royalty. We make almost all our income playing live shows and composing music for films etc., so it is no great hardship for us to give up this amount. We also hope that this becomes a means for other artists in India to reach out to their listening public
Even in Bollywood, F.A.L.T.U movie’s music offered digital-only purchase of music. And now, a Tamil/Telegu movie 180 has come up with an interesting model – pay what you want.
You can buy individual track for any money (as less as a 1 INR)!
For the first time in India, we are offering you the chance to pay what you want for songs from the album. Check out sample clips on this page, and if you like a song, simply type in the amount you want to pay for it at the time of checkout.
What’s your take? Does this model pushes the envelope when it comes to product quality (forces others to rethink on pricing)?
If you go to a restaurant which offers good food and asks you to put up a price, do you think you will end up paying more?
What’s your opinion?
[hat tip: iabhishek]
