Is free download the way forward to combat music piracy?

[Len]

Last week, Vijay Antony surprised his fans by announcing that they could download the songs of his upcoming film from his website free of cost. The actor-composer says that he decided to go this route because he wanted to promote his film. "Typically, songs gets pirated a couple of hours after their release. I am looking at this issue from the point of view of a music technician. We put in so much effort to make the song technically good, so I am worried about the loss in quality when people rip from the original and post them on pirated sites. I'm not saying that I have come up with extraordinary songs here. These are normal songs, which don't need too much hype, but still, I did work hard on them. So, by giving out these songs in a high quality as free, I'm ensuring the people listen to my songs as I want them to," says Vijay Antony, explaining the rationale behind his decision.

Shahir Muneer, the director of Divo, a digital music label, feels that more than a business decision, this approach makes more sense as a visibility and marketing approach. He says, "Today, online streaming has become the preferred choice for people who want to listen to music, and the figured has doubled since last year, thanks to high-speed mobile internet connections. But there is still a sizable number of people download music, both legally and from pirated sites, though this number is decreasing year by year. Here, Vijay Antony is primarily competing with the platforms that facilitate piracy, and this could make people opt to download his film's music legally rather than go to pirated sites."

Chidambaram, CEO, Trend Music, calls this a "marketing gimmick" that will have very little effect on the music business. "Music has stopped being a dependable revenue stream for the last few years and the revenue is not exactly from the audio. A few years ago, value added services (VAS) like caller tunes formed 70 per cent of the revenue.

But today, 80% of the revenue is from free-to-use platforms like YouTube, streaming apps like Gaana, iTunes and Saavn, and playoffs on radio. In the south, there is no concept of royalty from television playoffs, but in the north, thanks to influential labels like T-Series, this forms a sizable revenue. So, with people consuming music more from streaming services, offer songs as free-to-download does not make much of a difference. Such a move can get people to take note if it is for a big movie like 2.0 or involves AR Rahman or Anirudh, whose die-hard fans still want to listen to their music in the highest quality possible," he says and adds that the film team will still be monetising the songs when they get streamed in the free-to-use platforms.

Vijay Antony says that he took this decision without analysing too much about the likely loss in revenue and not with the intention of bringing in a change. "For me, reach is more important. I'm releasing the songs 15 days before the release of my film, and if a couple of them connect with the audience, I can double the impact of my film by using these songs in the re-recording. Anyway, I'm not losing big revenue from these songs by offering them for free. I see this as a big gain, actually, for reasons like quality and promotion," he says and adds that he intends to follow this approach for his upcoming films as well.