Sure, the transition from magnetic spool to plastic disc took a long time but the digital jump afterwards has been swift. Enter the scene -- Mp3, digital music players and mobile phones. The ease and portability, however, ushered in the culture of file swapping or in other words - piracy.
And in their effort to thwart this crippling trend of “sharing” through downloads and Bluetooth transfer, Music Nepal in association with Nepal Music Industries’ Association has launched an initiative to counter piracy by selling music tracks in USB drives and memory cards.
Flash drives have been in the market for quite some time, but with recent drops in price and the increase in capacity, it has become a viable option for selling music. Also with their solid construction, a drive can survive years longer than CDs.
You can take your own flash drive to the download centre, or purchase pen drive or memory card offered at an affordable price of Rs 875 and Rs 675 respectively; both offer 2 GB storage capacity and six months warranty.
Music Nepal will sell each track for Rs 2, out of which 15 percent will be distributed as royalty. 30 dealers have been appointed across the country to facilitate customers with this service.
Till now only two collections, “Nepali Modern Songs – Mega Collection” and “Nepali Folk Songs – Mega Collection” have been put together.
According to Santosh Sharma, managing director of Music Nepal, “This step was taken as an effort to counter the prevalent trend of downloading music illegally and the decrease in the sales of cassettes and CDs.”
Sharma added, “Illegal channels are pocketing Rs 50 million annually, but with the cooperation of government and media channels, we can use the technology to our benefit.”
Popular singer and president of Nepal Singers Society, Ram Krishna Dhakal, shared, “100 companies have shown their solidarity by joining in this campaign, which can only help the struggling music industry. With the evolution in technology, the piracy has gone up ten-fold, and if you can’t fight it might as well join the revolution.”
Although some artistes are skeptical of the move and are worried that it might further fuel piracy, Suman Shakya of Cellroti.com on the other hand applauded the move and said, “You cannot stop piracy, period. It was there in the past and still exists. It evolves with technology.” But Shakya is of the belief that such provision will boost sales of music legally.
He adds if that is the case then Music Nepal will have to make sure the royalty is properly channeled to the artistes.
Not a novel idea, it has been tried and tested in the West. Matchbox Twenty and Willie Nelson have released their albums on USB drives and even companies such as Sony provided Michael Jackson’s Thriller 25 year Anniversary album on thumb drives.
However, how successful the move will be here in Nepal is yet to be seen.
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