The Hindu Business Line : Gig-a-bytes!

When pop legend Elton John took the stage at Manhattan's Madison Square Garden for his 60th birthday performance in March this year, there was more to the knockout, history-making concert than met the eye. Quite expectedly, the famous New York arena was choc-a-bloc with over 20,000 Elton fans, including dozens of A-list celebrities. But they weren't the only ones savouring the three-and-a-half-hour spectacle of timeless music. A good half a world away in India, four times as many revellers were partaking in the gala celebrations without so much as budging from their desks.

This could well have been the story of a show aired live on TV. Except that it was devoid of the dime-a-dozen commercial interruptions, it supplemented the live action with samples from the crooner-composer's back catalogue of nearly 500 tracks, and offered an on-demand rerun of the action for Johnnies-come-lately. The medium in this case was, well what else, the Internet, which is fast blurring the distinction of geography, time and space between artists and their fans.

Streaming the concert live to scores of music buffs on the Internet for free was Microsoft's Internet portal MSN in collaboration with Control Room (formerly Network LIVE), a provider of live digital entertainment. "MSN announced a multiyear, global, live content distribution agreement with Control Room in October 2006," says Krishna Prasad, Executive Producer, MSN India. "The partnership will see MSN as the exclusive online destination via live and on-demand streaming for Control Room's live music programming."

Virtually better and better

For long, virtual music was all about the expectant gruel of watching bits of musical information flow into our hard drive, the wicked thrill of pilfering favourite music from Web sites that refused to part with them for a song, the penny-pinching joy of readying our MP3 for the compact disc. And ironically, even as technologies such as the Internet, peer-to-peer file sharing and CD burning were panned for stifling album sales, they could be seen spawning ever newer opportunities and delivery models for artists, labels and entrepreneurs to distribute and sell music.

Of course, the Internet's Dark Age posed initial hurdles. There were the early movers like the Mick Jagger-led Rolling Stones, who, in a bid to make their concerts exciting and relevant to their fans, performed one of the first live rock-and-roll concerts on the Internet way back in 1994. But it required music to be stored on a disk before being heard. It subsequently took the likes of Webstock, an ambitious online music festival conceived in 1996, to lay bare the other chinks in technology's armour: Names such as Michael Stipe and Cindy Crawford could do little to keep the tiny, jerky online videos from taking the fizz out of the concept.

But today's is a brave new world. Technology has come of age and online music has become serious business. Even in places where bands with buzz would seldom venture, catching a show live on the Web is no longer an exercise in frustration. It isn't unusual to find online the live recordings of bands like Pearl Jam and Phish, for no charge whatsoever. Others like Dave Matthews Band are known to encourage fans to download for free CD-quality recordings of just about any show they've performed. More and more technophiles are enamoured by the ease and convenience of enjoying music online and ventures such as MSN-Control Room further underscore the potential of live concerts on the Web as a high-growth area.

Enjoy... anywhere, anytime

"Lifestyle and entertainment are among the key things that consumers are interested in on an ongoing basis. When we assessed the need gap between what is available in the marketplace and in the online space today, we realised that although there are a whole lot of concerts happening, there is no way that everybody can participate in them," says Prasad of MSN. Much in line with this idea, recent concerts by Beyonce Knowles and Rod Stewart, apart from Elton John, have been among the highest viewed performances on the Web.

"It's a great idea and will help artists and their music reach music lovers all over the world," says Palash Sen, lead vocalist of the popular band Euphoria. "Most of our fans hail from the educated, upwardly mobile strata. The Internet is therefore the perfect vehicle for bands like Euphoria to reach out to them." Sen, an ardent surfer who always carries a laptop, says, "I often visit the Web sites of various artists such as Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones and Sting to find out how they are promoting their music."

Has he heard and seen himself on the Internet? "I know of a few instances when our performances had been put up on the Internet, like that at a Microsoft event in Hyderabad," he says. "It felt nice to see ourselves online."

Naveen Thomas, lead guitarist of Bangalore-based bands Parousia and Galeej Gurus, also agrees that the Internet has made music so much more accessible for musicians as well as listeners. "Music is on a conspicuous rise in India and the Internet is further aiding this," he says. "India offers a huge growth platform. Look at the growing number of takers for concerts by international artists. Earlier, we used to have one concert every 3-4 years. Now we host 8-10 concerts a year."

Far-reaching impact

Also an avid surfer, Kamal Singh, guitarist and vocalist with the Bangalore-based band Lounge Piranha, sees the Internet as a great tool in promoting music. "We too have a lot of stuff on a few social networking and video sharing sites and have reached out to places we wouldn't have otherwise thought about. This has resulted in many radio stations abroad asking us for clips of our music." He adds, "Through these Web sites, a Spanish television channel devoted to adventure sports recently approached me, wanting to use one of my songs as the background music for a documentary on a Mt. Everest expedition."

With bandwidth constraints fast disappearing in India, the World Wide Web has become a more viable environment for live and recorded music. "Broadband is growing at a phenomenal pace here," says Prasad. "I personally rate this whole experience very high, both in terms of the visuals and the sound, as compared to all that we have seen in the past." Yet, as in most things online, is content piracy and misuse a threat? "If the concert organisers and record labels can guard their interests adequately, I don't see any risks associated with this idea," says Sen. Prasad affirms, "The truth of the matter is that while the quality of delivery is good enough to let you enjoy the event, it isn't so high as to lend itself to replication or piracy."

Prasad doesn't foresee this turning into a paid model for the users.

However, in expanding its entertainment offerings, MSN is also generating opportunities for advertisers to integrate into and around the content itself to support this initiative financially. Says Rajnish, Head of Digital Marketing Revenue and Strategic Business, MSN India and Windows Live: "MSN Control Room is a unique opportunity for advertisers to reach out to a highly engaged and valuable audience through a host of display advertising opportunities... well integrated with the overall content offering."

MSN India, which receives around 18 million unique users monthly, is currently looking at artists better suited to Indian preferences, and these include Indian performers as well. "We are in talks with many artists," says Prasad. "We are looking at everything that comes under the genre of entertainment. This is just the beginning. We have a lot of interesting stuff in store for the users." Indeed, even at the risk of looking silly sitting in front of the monitor, pumping our fist in the air and yelling, there's no denying that spilled drinks and stomped feet no longer need to be a part of live entertainment.

Virtual melody

Rolling Stones performed one of the earliest live rock-and-roll concerts on the Internet in 1994

Webstock, an online music festival, was started in 1996.

Technological advances have helped ease initial hiccups such as tiny-sized, jerky online videos.

Internet, peer-to-peer file sharing and CD burning open up new delivery models for the music industry.

Some bands encourage fans to download for free CD-quality recordings of their shows.

Artists see the Web as a means to reach newer audiences.

Broadband today allows online viewing with quality visuals and sound.

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