The Hindu Business Line : Music industry looks up after TN crackdown on piracy

THE music industry in Tamil Nadu says that business has started to look up after the State Government toughened anti-piracy laws, but a significant improvement in sales volumes may take a while.

Already, piracy seems to have been contained in Chennai - the State's main market - but a combination of piracy in rural and semi-urban pockets and lack of musical hits is limiting growth, according to industry players.

The Indian Music Industry (IMI), which had set up anti-piracy cells across the country, spots fewer cases in the city these days than it did some months ago when piracy hadn't yet been brought under the purview of the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act, 1982 says Mr T.G. Subramanian, State Co-ordinator.

However, piracy still exists outside city limits, particularly down South, according to a business executive of an audio company.

Notwithstanding this, the RPG group company Saregama India, which markets Carnatic, devotional and catalogued products, and does not publish film music in the South, has seen a moderate increase in its volumes in the past couple of months.

Mr Umesh Pai, Regional Sales Manager, says that small retail shops that have stopped selling pirated products will need to invest more to deal in original ones, and that will take a few more months.

A retailer can buy a pirated cassette for Rs 10-15 and sell it for Rs 40, thereby making a margin of Rs 25-30; such margins are absent in original products because the cost includes royalties and the tax component, he adds.

With pirates having gone underground, retailers of legitimate albums could see an increase in volumes, says Mr Kathiresan, Partner, Five Star Audio, which has had hits like the Tamil movies 7/G Rainbow Colony and Ghillli this year.

Five Star and Star Music, another label that deals in film music, say that there has been reasonable growth over the past couple of months but business could take off once piracy is contained fully.

In many areas, MP3 CDs, which are packed with songs from a number of albums, are available for Rs 10 apiece, says a spokesperson of Star Music.

The devotional music genre has also been affected, with the result that players such as Saregama have become dependent on large chains for volumes.

The company, for instance, says that 67 per cent of its sales in Tamil Nadu comes from six chain stores such as Music World and Landmark while the rest is contributed by 350 small stores.

These 350 stores are predominantly in rural or semi-urban areas. But Mr Pai hopes the proportion of sales from both these clusters will become 50:50 if anti-piracy measures click.

More Stories on : Piracy | Music & Dance | Tamil Nadu

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