It has been quite some time since Apple came out with its itunes which provided a virtual shop to buy your own music. But this was only the beginning for today not only has digital music selling superceeded traditional methods of selling but it is also being explored for new grounds to provide quality music to the consumers and as well as look after the needs of the artists/musicians/producers.
Planet M, Channel V, Rhythm House were some of the places that were considered to be main sources for music some years ago. Today, considering the economics, most of these stores have closed down. Distribution of music was in a slump. The Piracy over the internet and the recorded cassette business took this part of the industry deeper into the grave. The Indian music scene dominated by Bollywood was not so ruffled as the films continued to flourish. This unfortunately acted as an invisible curtain towards the demise of what was once one of the most reputed scene in the world.
India hitting the web brought some changes in this. At First there was the radio; Music over the internet was offered by websites through streaming webcast. A number of websites became popular offering such services such as yahoo radio. This services provided the option of a number of Channels to choose from based on popularity and genres. With growth in popularity, there sprang up websites completely dedicated to this activity such as www.365radio.com, also along with it came new features and services such as broadcasting your own station from home, scrobbling of the track you hear, recommendations, people who like similar music. Websites such as Spotify, Groovebox took this scene even further by allowing users to manage their own music library on them.
Ecommerce is picking up pace in India. With rising trust in the digital mechanism and the incorporating of ERM in major workplaces, Shopping for stuff over the internet is not so far of the horizon to the average Indian guy.Flipkart.com recently made its entry into the digital music domain with Flyte. Flyte is a section within the site offering almost everything available on a mainstream level. It offers everything from swedish pop to marathi movie songs. The nominal pricing and fast expanding delivery network across the country makes this site one to watch out for.
Apart from various start up organizations making their name in this scene. Many music or music related companies too have forayed into this scene. NH7, an OML enterprise has also ventured into this foray by tieing up with Flipkart to provide a source for some exclusive music across the country. The recent changes in relation to this have been Beats headphones took over music subscription companies, Universal trying to buy EMI’s recording Unit, Yahoo changes its music service from Spotify to its own. Apart from the excellent logistics and programming done by most of the major websites ensuring a foolproof mechanism towards the processing of these operations. This tool is growing in familarity for the range of music that is available on offer. It has in a way opened the gates to an average internet user to a whole galaxy of music happening around the planet. This system is not yet foolproof. Errors do occur. A fair responsive customer service could fix the damage if there is one.
Another issue that might hit this way of doing things could be the ownership rights of this music. Currently 4 major companies hold the licenses for selling of Music of 80 percent of the major artists in the world. It has been a case that these record labels have been difficult when it comes to negotiations in such matters.
Pricing is a parameter that has experienced much thought in this field. This could be mainly due to the lack of direct contact involved in the process of transaction. Website such as Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Podomatic, Beatport, etc have used pricing structures such as preview before you buy the track, buy single track , download album for free and/or what you want/can.
Nonetheless with view of nanofication of things in recent years at least in the case of electronics, it is expected that music buying and selling would occur in a digital format. Mobile music is also becoming popular nowadays with some interesting apps around. Shazam, an app that allows users to track the name of the album they were listening to. For the musicians, they could record, upload and sell if they wanted to an evening jam with the use of the services available today.
