Mobile Music: Music in a New Bottle

Combining music and mobile technology promises exciting future
developments in the rapidly emerging field of mobile music. Mobile phones have
already brought music to the ever-changing social and geographic locations of
their users. Most youngsters today when not conversing, are walking around with
headphones plugged to their ears, listening to music. Music on the move has
become an integral part of the mobile users' experience. Mobile music
technology offers countless new artistic, commercial and socio-cultural
opportunities for music creation, listening and sharing. Would this deadly
combination of music and mobile technology change the scenario of the
traditional music industry? Probably yes!

Traditional Vs Mobile

Before pondering over the impact mobile music will have on the traditional
music industry, let's understand what things are packed in the bags of both
these industries. The traditional music market consists of consumers spending on
albums, single sound recordings and music videos distributed in traditional
formats and sold in record stores, including compact discs and cassette tapes.
It also includes licensed digital distribution services that provide electronic
files for use on computers, iPod devices, and MP3 players, as well as mobile
music. Mobile music is music distributed to mobile phones through wireless
carriers. Mobile music may be in the form polyphonic or monophonic ring tones or
sing tones, caller back ring tones, streaming music downloads, video tones and
full song downloads.

According to COAI, 'The mobile music industry contributes
nearly 7% of the total operator revenues and is expected to grow nearly 23% by
2010. Mobile music industry has become much larger than the size of the regular
music industry. The sale of mobile music has zoomed to Rs 450 crore, with 300 mn
downloads per annum and the figure is set to double over the next 12-18 months.'

Digital Music Drive

Soundbuzz's analysis of several reports indicates that digital music in Asia
is driven by the mobile sector and India is all set to be the second country in
the world, after South Korea, where digital music sales (specifically mobile
music) will surpass those of physical music. The reports also suggested that the
music industry would continue to grow in India, from Rs 1,450 crore in 2005 to
Rs 4,100 crore in 2009. This growth will be fuelled by mobile music and will
account for 88% of the music industry's revenues, and mobile music growth will
be fuelled by formats, ring tones, ring back tones, full track audio and video
downloads.

	"To restrict the loss of revenue through Bluetooth, a joint policy decision on DRM (Digital Right Management) needs to be developed between the operator, manufacturer and content provider"
	-Asim Warsi, general manager, Marketing, Samsung Telecommunications India

Service providers on their part are also keeping the ball
rolling. Apart from the usual services, they are trying to personalize the
mobile music services. One can make their friends listen to their favorite song
every time they call. Hutch brings caller tunes facility where one can play
popular songs or choose a song from Bollywood and international hits, wacky
sounds to pure instrumental, devotional songs, regional songs. If that was not
enough, record ones own voice and play it for friends or customize a tune for
individual callers.

Airtel has introduced many innovative services in mobile music
that have redefined mobile usage in the Indian market. Airtel introduced Hello
Tunes to the Indian mobile industry in 2004 and today offers over 25,000 songs
in 20 different languages. Since then, the Airtel users have reacted very
positively to the availability of music with over 100 million music downloads in
January 2007. To popularize music further, Airtel has over 200,000 Airtel Easy
Music retail outlets that cater to the music needs of its customers.

	'We expect to see the current mobile music download market of Rs 450 crore balloon to Rs 3,600 crore in the coming two years. This enormous growth will occur as rich mobile media derivatives such as full audio and videos, ring back tones and master tones gain an increasing foothold among India's 200 million mobile subscribers"
	-Mandar Thakur, GM, Soundbuzz India

Airtel also was the first to introduce Indian classical music
content and now the latest innovative service, Airtel 'SongCatcher', which
uniquely offers easy access and instant music on mobile sets, and can draw
comparisons to what a search engine does on the Internet. Airtel also introduced
Background Music, wherein when a mobile user calls an Airtel customer, he can
listen to different music and sounds playing in the background during the call,
as well as Mobile Radio, which allows users in any part of the country to have
music entertainment on tap, by just dialing a short digit number, and listening
to music on their phones. No FM or GPRS is required, and users can listen to
music of their choice, by skipping songs, rather than waiting for a boring song
to finish!

To spice up music, Spice offers various music content through
different platforms like GPRS, IVR, CRBT, BGM etc. Subscribers have an option to
download music in the form of ringtones or True Music, to set the song as caller
song or background music, to listen to the full song through IVR based Juke Box
or to dedicate the song to any other phone subscriber.

Even handset manufacturers don't want to miss the party. A
majority of cell-phone users buy handsets integrated with FM radio and MP3
player and manufacturers know music enabled phones are the need of the hour. To
capture and strengthen their position in the market, manufacturers are launching
music-enabled handsets at a fast pace as compared to last year. Major handset
manufactures like Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, LG and Samsung have
shown an increase in launches of music enabled handsets.

Plaguing in Piracy

However, the picture is not all that rosy. A major problem plaguing the
mobile music industry is that of illegitimate downloads. Illegitimate downloads
refer to the free transfer of music from one handset to another. Music piracy
can be defined as any illegal manner in which a person may procure music. This
may include download of music illegally from websites, duplication of audio CDs,
conversion of music into MP3 or other formats not offered by the music company
and circulated in the markets, for personal or commercial use. They can be
categorized under music piracy.

Piracy of music has been witnessed by the industry for a long
time now. With the popularity of music in the telecom industry through ring
tones, music downloads, etc it has now started taking roots in this industry as
well. A ring tone, which is downloaded by a mobile subscriber on his cell phone
and transferred to his friends, is also piracy. More and more mobile subscribers
who transfer downloaded music using technologies like Infrared, Bluetooth, WiFi,
etc are indulging in piracy.

As a matter of fact, piracy cannot be completely stopped but it
can be minimized by encoding the music content in mobile phones. It will
restrict the loss of revenue. A joint policy decision on Digital Rights
Management (DRM) needs to be developed between operators, manufacturers and
content providers so that licensed files are not transferred through any means.
In the West, they are strictly enforcing DRM. This policy needs to be fully
operational in India.

Cellebrum, on its part, has already implemented the use of
Digital Rights Management (DRM) while offering music applications to their
customers. This, to a large extent, ensures secure transfer of proprietary
material and smooth functioning and reduction of losses for the industry per se.

To sideline the DRM issue EMI recently said it is releasing a
DRM-free version of its entire music catalogue and that Apple's iTunes Store
will be the first online music store to sell EMI's new downloads. But the
catch is EMI's announcement regarding DRM-free downloads which seems to be
addressing only the online environment because the parameters make reference to
128 Kbps and 256 Kbps, plus online pricing, and additionally, iTunes is only an
online player.

"Music serves a universal penchant for all customers across different age groups, and economic strata. It is the passion for music that led the VAS industry into developing innovative music based products. The difference, however, is the format in which music is offered"		"We have tied up with many regional, national and international music companies directly or indirectly through other content providers. Music content being the most desired among all content available on mobile"
-Paul Shoker, president, Sales and Marketing, Cellebrum		-Prakash Nanani, CEO, Spice Communications

Music on the move seems to be the mantra of today for customers,
service providers, content providers and handset manufactures. All want to
strike the iron when it is hot and reap maximum benefits. So, get ready for the
music revolution.

Sandeep Budki


Sandeepb@cybermedia.co.in