If you don’t use Spotify to play your music, you've probably missed something big. A few days ago, a whole bunch of Bollywood songs disappeared from the music streaming service. And if you’d scratched your head a bit to solve the mystery, you would’ve seen a common link — all those missing songs were part of Zee Music’s catalogue, said a report by music journalist Amit Gurbaxani last week on Billboard.com. It went on to add that until March 14 — the day before the catalogue was pulled off Spotify — Zee Music had over 12 tracks on the streaming platform's Daily Top 200 Songs chart for India. Spotify and Zee Music couldn’t reach a definite agreement on how much money all of those songs are really worth.
The licensing deal fell through. The result is that listeners who use Spotify are now left fuming because their favourites are now unplayable. When we contacted Spotify, a spokesperson told FPJ, “Spotify and Zee Music have been unable to reach a licensing agreement. Throughout these negotiations, Spotify has tried to find creative ways to strike a deal with Zee Music, and will continue our good faith negotiations in hopes of finding a mutually agreeable solution soon.” Zee Music, however, despite repeated attempts did not comment on the fallout.
"I know you’re sad my songs Theher Ja, Sau Aasmaan and a few more aren’t on Spotify anymore. Im sad too. Unfortunately we ain’t the rights owners of our Bollywood songs, so no matter what we can only hope that the issue is resolved at the earliest btwn the label & the platform. (sic)," tweeted Bollywood singer Armaan Malik.
Twitter user @sarahdhingraa asked: 'Why are all entertainment apps collectively doing this to us?'
The move has led to listeners getting creative with memes. @MSDianAbhiii posted a meme of sobbing men captioned: 'Zee music Spotify se apna contract renew kardo ab mazaak nahi hai yeh'. (sic)."
'Since zee music and spotify are going nuts and removing songs it's time to bring back the OG,' wrote @FuriousAquarius with a screenshot of the torrent website songs.pk
Tweeted @theindianidiot: 'First lot of yrf movies leaving Netflix, then HBO leaving Disney+Hotstar, now Zee music leaving Spotify ? Gonna go back to pendrive mei movies and songs daalne vaala era'. He closed it with a sad emoji.
Why did this happen?
To understand why this is happening, let's do a recap of how things used to work until a decade ago. You have a musician or singer who harnesses their talent and energies to create original songs. But for the artist’s songs to reach us, it typically passes through a middleman. This is a gigantic record label like Sony Music, Eros or Universal Music Group who have a massive distribution clout and followers on various platforms. They sign on the musician in a legally binding contract and promise to promote and distribute their music according to mutually agreed terms.
After this, the label practically owns the music and in return, the artists get a royalty on the song whenever someone buys it. Meanwhile, fans were (legally) buying cassettes, vinyls and CDs or (illegally) downloading songs via torrent sites. This is how things worked for decades, until one fine day, Swedish firm Spotify arrived into the picture in 2008. They told record labels that listeners weren't buying music as much as they were pirating it since no one wanted to buy complete albums. Fans only wanted to hear their favourite songs in particular.
Since the record labels and artists are losing that all-important moolah in the process of piracy, Spotify told music companies that they had a win-all solution: they would license their music catalogue and allow listeners to play it on demand. No more piracy. Spotify would stream the music for free, run ads, or charge a subscription fee for premium users. A percentage of that money would go to the labels and the artists. The desi record labels were initially suspicious of this new entrant but eventually joined the brigade and on February 26, 2019, Spotify launched in India. Spotify signed a content deal with T-Series in 2019 and a licensing deal with the historic label Saregama in 2020, which added another 100,000 songs. Good thing too. As of today, over 60% of the revenue for Indian music companies now come from streaming services like Spotify, Wynk, Apple Music and Gaana.
War of subscribers
India is among the top markets for Spotify. In an interview to Business Insider, Akshat Harbola, head of strategy, Spotify India said that when they made an entry in 2019, “the consumption was 70% international music, now it’s 70% local music”. Spotify India stands as “one of the fastest, if not the fastest growing ads business for Spotify in the world” according Arjun Kolady, head of sales at the platform.
However, music labels want something else in the partnership: leverage. Unlike North America, UK and Canada, Spotify isn't the only major streaming service for music listeners in India. In the 11 years it took the platform to reach Indian shores, other players dug deep and spread wide. Gaana was launched in April 2010 and claims to be India's largest commercial music streaming service with 200 million users. Apple Music launched in our country in 2015 and is the de facto music app for iPhone users in our new tech-obssessed nation. JioSaavn is a freemium service founded in 2007 as Saavn. It has acquired rights to over 8 crore tracks in 15 languages.
Last but not least in our list of top players is YouTube, which is the favourite app for Indians to listen to music on-the-go according to a survey by Nielsen. A lot has to do with the fact that it streams videos. Visuals are a big part of the aural experience for us Indians, especially while consuming filmi gaanas. Imagine Bhediya's 'Thumkeshwari' or RRR's 'Naatu Naatu' without the choreography; the takeaway isn't 100% without watching the leading stars doing the hook steps. Market leader T-Series has 239 million Youtube subscribers and Zee Music has a robust 94 million. So, it's not surprising that the label decided to throw its weight around and ask for more money than the few crores it was getting.
Desi users Vs Gen Z
On the flipside, Spotify seems to be struggling to add more subscribers from our country. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Indians prefer free stuff. Gen Z would rather download music illegally and risk getting caught than pay a monthly premium to get our sonic fix. A 2022 survey conducted by the IMI (Indian Music Industry) found that the age group of 16-24 registered the highest use of music streaming overall (97%) but were least likely to pay for their services. Less than half of surveyed respondents said that they pay to use a streaming service. Not surprisingly, 47% of Gen Z said they didn’t pay because all the music they wanted was available on YouTube, while premium subscription costs were high.
This listener trend has put Spotify in a spot! The platform is “doubling down” on advertising revenue with a bigger ad-sales team. However, if you listen through the ads between songs, you'll notice that they aren't from consumer brands but from the platform itself... offering cheaper subscriptions and family plans. While Spotify struggles to find real advertisers, Meta (which owns Instagram) and Alphabet (which owns Youtube) is hauling them in with their large bases and visual appeal on Reels, Shorts and videos.
Zee Music seems to be having the last laugh, having put Spotify in a Catch-22 situation. Either, the streaming service has to increase its free desi user base or ask freebie-loving Indians to pay for listening to their favourite songs. Else, other record labels might threaten to storm out if their greed for more is not met.
