6 ms·

I am not surprised, considering that pirating songs is still the most hassle free way to listen to music, especially down here in India. Spotify isn't available

I am not surprised, considering that pirating songs is still the most hassle free way to listen to music, especially down here in India. Spotify isn't available due to label issues and local streaming services don't have a good selection of non-bollywood music. Now that physical media cannot be used anywhere in laptops or mobiles and youtube cannot be minimized on mobiles, the best and easy way to get music, especially western music is to pirate mp3 files and share it on usb sticks and sd cards.

Grumbledour 8y ago
Just out of curiosity; Why is it not possible to buy mp3s? Amazon, play store, iTunes etc. all use no DRM to my knowledge? Or is it just a question of price?
- Spooky23 8y ago
  It is, but not licensed for India. “Piracy” includes grey market media.
- avar 8y ago
  (Not Indian, but we get the same thing in Europe) Because movie studios, music labels etc. sell exclusive distribution rights to local music cartels, and many of these deals are historical and hard to get out of, e.g. maybe they were 20-30 year contracts made in the mid-90s when nobody was serious about this "Internet" thing. Which is why Netflix has such a fragmented offering per-country, and why e.g. you might be able to technically buy some song on a CD in India, but it's not available anywhere online, or in the likes of Spotify.
  - unsignedint 8y ago
    I am frustrated by this all the time but for Japanese contents in US. Japanese broadcast (TV Japan) in the US can have segment censored or even cut entirely. (gets worse when Olympics is on, but that's another story with another reasons.) It got a lot better, particularly for anime, because companies were losing money without legal (and timely) distribution, but there's still big hole in music contents. I guess music from Japan is niche compared to anime. (And worse with something obscure I tend to listen, e.g. anime related music) Some small subset of musicians and labels are nice enough to put the entire thing on YouTube, but I wish there were an avenue to listen to them just as easy as Spotify, and with decent coverage.
- curiousgal 8y ago
  For Tunisia, it is not possible to buy anything online because the currency is not internationally convertible.
  - wtmt 8y ago
    That's really sad, and I understand how frustrating that can be. It used to be next to impossible to do the same in India, but things have changed a lot in the last two decades. We still have a lot of control on the currency.
- iamben 8y ago
  I can't answer for the parent, but I'll make an assumption with an analogy. You're on a long walk, absolutely starving and there's a strong possibility you won't get to eat for a while. A guy by the road is selling apples - with the small amount of cash you have on you, you could afford 4 or 5, enough to fill you up. Across the road there's an empty looking house set far back from the road, with an apple tree right in the yard at the front. Hundreds of apples have fallen on the ground - it's no biggie to lean over the fence and grab a handful of apples. No one is in the house, the guy selling apples isn't watching, what do you do? Of course, you _are_ starving, and you do have some money, which you'd be prepared to spend on food. Now assume that next to the apple seller is a small cafe - the menu is vast and you can eat as much as you want of pretty much any kind of food. You pay once and if you stop in on the way back you can eat again. Now what do you do?
- quantummkv 8y ago
  It's less a question of price and more that of convenience. In India most services don't have the full catalog due to old licensing issues. There is fragmentation. Which does not matter when you pirate stuff.
  - Grumbledour 8y ago
    Thanks. I just assumed amazon, google and itunes would over the same digital catalog around the globe. I have myself mostly bought music from smaller artists via bandcamp or their personal sites, but mostly saw their albums also on these big platforms, so it didn't even occur to me their offerings could differ by country. (strictly talking about music, when looking at movies etc., even central Europe where I am located has severely limited options in comparison to the US. But then, other than music comes with mostly draconian DRM anyway.)
- magicalhippo 8y ago
  Tried buying some mp3's on Amazon a couple of years ago. It wouldn't let me because my credit card wasn't an American one. I'm guessing this has to do with labels and their distribution rights.
  - TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
    Sometimes it's useful to expand the definition of "pirates."
- rsync 8y ago
  "Why is it not possible to buy mp3s? Amazon, play store, iTunes etc. all use no DRM to my knowledge? Or is it just a question of price?" I was going to ask the same thing - specifically about Amazon, which sells non-DRM, standard mp3s - but it occurs to me this might only be in the United States. What does mp3 purchasing from Amazon look like from other countries ? Just a vastly different catalog ? The same catalog but with DRM files ?
  - petecooper 8y ago
    >What does mp3 purchasing from Amazon look like from other countries ? Speaking from a UK perspective, everything I've purchased from Amazon UK has been provided as DRM-free MP3. Amazon UK (and possibly elsewhere) has an AutoRip feature where CD purchases are also added as gratis downloads. This extends to prior purchases, too – I was a bit wary about downloading some items since they were bought as gifts for people via their wishlist…and yet since I was the purchaser, I was the presumed licence holder…but didn't have the CD in my possession. The same goes for CDs that I'd bought, listened to and subsequently sold, which presumably transfers the licence to the new holder of the CD…and yet I can still download the album via Amazon Music. Tricky.
  - AnssiH 8y ago
    > What does mp3 purchasing from Amazon look like from other countries ? Just a vastly different catalog ? The same catalog but with DRM files ? For Finland and most other countries, it is not possible to purchase digital music (or movies/shows, for that matter) from Amazon. If I try to purchase an MP3 from the US site (amazon.com), I get "We were unable to process your order with the current payment information. Please click 'Continue' to select a default payment method and 1-Click address." Clicking "Continue" just gets me back to the item page, so even the error messaging is broken. OTOH Amazon Video has a proper error message about needing a US payment method. Amazon does offer the Amazon Music Unlimited subscription service here, though, and I believe it has a catalog comparable to other services (but I'm not a user).
- Wed10Oct 8y ago
  I download albums not available on Spotify on 7digital, which is legal and DRM-free (and expensive). Although it's only available in Europe.
inapis 8y ago
I’ve found Apple music to have a really decent catalog in India
wtmt 8y ago
> ...and local streaming services don't have a good selection of non-bollywood music By non-Bollywood, do you mean music in other Indian languages or popular English music? Amazon Prime and Apple Music seem to have something in other languages, though nobody seems to have everything (without ads and a bad experience). Amazon Prime (with video, music and books) is Rs.999 a year, while Apple Music is Rs.120 a month. For those not familiar with India, there are 22 official languages (you can see them on the currency notes) and about a 1000 dialects. Popular music is still mostly from movies, and the country produces more than a 1000 movies a year across different languages.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Very unusable though with stupid DRM downloads or forced streaming. Both preclude backups or reuse on multiple devices. At the very least, complicate it immensely. Compared to that, Bandcamp is heaven. A tiny one though I'm happy to pay for.
  - wtmt 8y ago
    Yeah, the DRM and the various limits (even if they look big, they're still limits...on a paid service) imposed on offline storage and the inability to move content across devices are huge bummers.
- quantummkv 8y ago
  > By non-Bollywood, do you mean music in other Indian languages or popular English music? Western music mostly. I took a gaana.com subscription to find that its rock/metal music catalogue had big holes in it. And as you said even for bollywood music the experience is not that good.
monocasa 8y ago
In Africa I saw these devices that were dedicated sd card file transfer devices. You plugged in two sd cards in and it had a Norton Commander-esque interface on the top for transferring files between the two. It was weird seeing such a device that wasn't a general purpose computer. Do you guys have devices like that in India?
- tk75x 8y ago
  We have one like that in the US https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIADRS5NW0892 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIADRS5NW0...
  - monocasa 8y ago
    AFAICT, that's a block level duplicator. The ones I'm talking about let you copy individual files. So everyone has their own SD card, and you turn to your buddy and say "damn that's a banging tune", so you guys head down to the village tech store and the guy there lets you copy the mp3 from your buddy's card to yours using his fixed purpose file copier.
billfruit 8y ago
Google Play Music is there in India with their full catalog, but Google seems not to be pushing it much, and their player software is very bare bones, cannot do volume equalization in a play list for eg.
- Nition 8y ago
  Google Play Music does let you download the album you purchased, at least. Then you can play it in whatever music player you like.
lappet 8y ago
Aren't streaming services dedicated to the Indian market gaining traction? Saavn used to be big and these days there is Gaana as well

Grumbledour 8y ago

Just out of curiosity; Why is it not possible to buy mp3s? Amazon, play store, iTunes etc. all use no DRM to my knowledge? Or is it just a question of price?

Spooky23 8y ago
It is, but not licensed for India. “Piracy” includes grey market media.
avar 8y ago
(Not Indian, but we get the same thing in Europe) Because movie studios, music labels etc. sell exclusive distribution rights to local music cartels, and many of these deals are historical and hard to get out of, e.g. maybe they were 20-30 year contracts made in the mid-90s when nobody was serious about this "Internet" thing. Which is why Netflix has such a fragmented offering per-country, and why e.g. you might be able to technically buy some song on a CD in India, but it's not available anywhere online, or in the likes of Spotify.
- unsignedint 8y ago
  I am frustrated by this all the time but for Japanese contents in US. Japanese broadcast (TV Japan) in the US can have segment censored or even cut entirely. (gets worse when Olympics is on, but that's another story with another reasons.) It got a lot better, particularly for anime, because companies were losing money without legal (and timely) distribution, but there's still big hole in music contents. I guess music from Japan is niche compared to anime. (And worse with something obscure I tend to listen, e.g. anime related music) Some small subset of musicians and labels are nice enough to put the entire thing on YouTube, but I wish there were an avenue to listen to them just as easy as Spotify, and with decent coverage.
curiousgal 8y ago
For Tunisia, it is not possible to buy anything online because the currency is not internationally convertible.
- wtmt 8y ago
  That's really sad, and I understand how frustrating that can be. It used to be next to impossible to do the same in India, but things have changed a lot in the last two decades. We still have a lot of control on the currency.
iamben 8y ago
I can't answer for the parent, but I'll make an assumption with an analogy. You're on a long walk, absolutely starving and there's a strong possibility you won't get to eat for a while. A guy by the road is selling apples - with the small amount of cash you have on you, you could afford 4 or 5, enough to fill you up. Across the road there's an empty looking house set far back from the road, with an apple tree right in the yard at the front. Hundreds of apples have fallen on the ground - it's no biggie to lean over the fence and grab a handful of apples. No one is in the house, the guy selling apples isn't watching, what do you do? Of course, you _are_ starving, and you do have some money, which you'd be prepared to spend on food. Now assume that next to the apple seller is a small cafe - the menu is vast and you can eat as much as you want of pretty much any kind of food. You pay once and if you stop in on the way back you can eat again. Now what do you do?
quantummkv 8y ago
It's less a question of price and more that of convenience. In India most services don't have the full catalog due to old licensing issues. There is fragmentation. Which does not matter when you pirate stuff.
- Grumbledour 8y ago
  Thanks. I just assumed amazon, google and itunes would over the same digital catalog around the globe. I have myself mostly bought music from smaller artists via bandcamp or their personal sites, but mostly saw their albums also on these big platforms, so it didn't even occur to me their offerings could differ by country. (strictly talking about music, when looking at movies etc., even central Europe where I am located has severely limited options in comparison to the US. But then, other than music comes with mostly draconian DRM anyway.)
magicalhippo 8y ago
Tried buying some mp3's on Amazon a couple of years ago. It wouldn't let me because my credit card wasn't an American one. I'm guessing this has to do with labels and their distribution rights.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  Sometimes it's useful to expand the definition of "pirates."
rsync 8y ago
"Why is it not possible to buy mp3s? Amazon, play store, iTunes etc. all use no DRM to my knowledge? Or is it just a question of price?" I was going to ask the same thing - specifically about Amazon, which sells non-DRM, standard mp3s - but it occurs to me this might only be in the United States. What does mp3 purchasing from Amazon look like from other countries ? Just a vastly different catalog ? The same catalog but with DRM files ?
- petecooper 8y ago
  >What does mp3 purchasing from Amazon look like from other countries ? Speaking from a UK perspective, everything I've purchased from Amazon UK has been provided as DRM-free MP3. Amazon UK (and possibly elsewhere) has an AutoRip feature where CD purchases are also added as gratis downloads. This extends to prior purchases, too – I was a bit wary about downloading some items since they were bought as gifts for people via their wishlist…and yet since I was the purchaser, I was the presumed licence holder…but didn't have the CD in my possession. The same goes for CDs that I'd bought, listened to and subsequently sold, which presumably transfers the licence to the new holder of the CD…and yet I can still download the album via Amazon Music. Tricky.
- AnssiH 8y ago
  > What does mp3 purchasing from Amazon look like from other countries ? Just a vastly different catalog ? The same catalog but with DRM files ? For Finland and most other countries, it is not possible to purchase digital music (or movies/shows, for that matter) from Amazon. If I try to purchase an MP3 from the US site (amazon.com), I get "We were unable to process your order with the current payment information. Please click 'Continue' to select a default payment method and 1-Click address." Clicking "Continue" just gets me back to the item page, so even the error messaging is broken. OTOH Amazon Video has a proper error message about needing a US payment method. Amazon does offer the Amazon Music Unlimited subscription service here, though, and I believe it has a catalog comparable to other services (but I'm not a user).
Wed10Oct 8y ago
I download albums not available on Spotify on 7digital, which is legal and DRM-free (and expensive). Although it's only available in Europe.

inapis 8y ago

I’ve found Apple music to have a really decent catalog in India

wtmt 8y ago

> ...and local streaming services don't have a good selection of non-bollywood music By non-Bollywood, do you mean music in other Indian languages or popular English music? Amazon Prime and Apple Music seem to have something in other languages, though nobody seems to have everything (without ads and a bad experience). Amazon Prime (with video, music and books) is Rs.999 a year, while Apple Music is Rs.120 a month. For those not familiar with India, there are 22 official languages (you can see them on the currency notes) and about a 1000 dialects. Popular music is still mostly from movies, and the country produces more than a 1000 movies a year across different languages.

AstralStorm 8y ago
Very unusable though with stupid DRM downloads or forced streaming. Both preclude backups or reuse on multiple devices. At the very least, complicate it immensely. Compared to that, Bandcamp is heaven. A tiny one though I'm happy to pay for.
- wtmt 8y ago
  Yeah, the DRM and the various limits (even if they look big, they're still limits...on a paid service) imposed on offline storage and the inability to move content across devices are huge bummers.
quantummkv 8y ago
> By non-Bollywood, do you mean music in other Indian languages or popular English music? Western music mostly. I took a gaana.com subscription to find that its rock/metal music catalogue had big holes in it. And as you said even for bollywood music the experience is not that good.

monocasa 8y ago

In Africa I saw these devices that were dedicated sd card file transfer devices. You plugged in two sd cards in and it had a Norton Commander-esque interface on the top for transferring files between the two. It was weird seeing such a device that wasn't a general purpose computer. Do you guys have devices like that in India?

tk75x 8y ago
We have one like that in the US https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIADRS5NW0892 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIADRS5NW0...
- monocasa 8y ago
  AFAICT, that's a block level duplicator. The ones I'm talking about let you copy individual files. So everyone has their own SD card, and you turn to your buddy and say "damn that's a banging tune", so you guys head down to the village tech store and the guy there lets you copy the mp3 from your buddy's card to yours using his fixed purpose file copier.

billfruit 8y ago

Google Play Music is there in India with their full catalog, but Google seems not to be pushing it much, and their player software is very bare bones, cannot do volume equalization in a play list for eg.

Nition 8y ago
Google Play Music does let you download the album you purchased, at least. Then you can play it in whatever music player you like.

lappet 8y ago

Aren't streaming services dedicated to the Indian market gaining traction? Saavn used to be big and these days there is Gaana as well