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When Vijay Basrur, a music enthusiast wanted to order a CD of one of his favourite bands, he was asked to mention his mailing address. The fact that musicians still use courier service to sell their music, surprised him.
“We are all living in an age wherein cell phones can perform every transaction online. Then why not make the alternative form of music available for sale? There is not a unified or central space to sell music.”
This was when Vijay decided to start a platform that would make music from various rock and semi-rock acts from India available for sale and also create some revenue for musicians.
Four weeks since its inception and the portal already has over 32 bands featuring more than 36 albums.
“Bands like Raghu Dixit, Vipin Mishra, Yellow Pages, Indo Gypsies, Aaj Kal and many more are already on board with us and their albums are priced at a much lower cost, than what are available in the stores.”
The albums are priced from Rs 99 to Rs 150, depending on the music bands. What started with an idea to create a pro-musician digital platform that musicians could trust, also soon became a destination for consumers to support the musicians they love.
“The journey to begin something like this, started at a point when alternatives were very few for these budding music acts who were original and unconventional and passionate about composing music.
Over the past few months our team has worked tirelessly to create a digital platform which users would love and the artists would trust,” Vijay explains, adding, “Independent music scene in India is booming. Live gigs and audio releases are the only source of revenue for these musicians. As digital downloading is picking up, we thought this initiative will enable them to further pursue their passion for music and not discontinue it, or drift away from it.”
With over 17-years of experience as an entrepreneur, Vijay has monitored the initiation of many online portals like eBay, INOX, Quickr.com, Synqua games and many more.
With revenues for musicians being the biggest challenge in this kind of an industry, Vijay has devised a relatively lucrative option for those in Ok, Listen! Talking about the distribution of revenue, he says, “We share 70 per cent of the net sales with the musicians as they are the direct owners of the song. Their part of the payout is directly credited to their bank accounts.”
The team also offers a quick boarding process (uploading of the album), processed music files complete with artwork and lyrics and a dashboard to access sales reports.
“We also give every musician a user ID and a password to access the portal, through which they can regularly check the status of the sales,” he elaborates. Besides a monetary benefit, the portal also provides musicians a chance to promote and increase the popularity of their music.
Explaining how, he says, “Every artist gets a unique URL through which they can let fans know about their page. Like for example, the page for Raghu Dixit’s page will be Oklisten.com/ Raghudixit, which is similar to many other portals. They can share this link even on their Facebook page.”
Ok, Listen! has also dealt with piracy head on, one of the major hindrance that musicians face.
“We believe that every deal or agreement should be transparent. It’s all about buying legal music and at an affordable price. I am sure fans will support it,” Vijay believes.
Mentioning the recent Indian Copyright Act, 1957 which was passed by the Rajya Sabha in May 2012, Vijay opines that times are changing for the better for musicians.
“From now on, it will be musicians who will have both creative and legal rights of the song.” However, in comparison with the Bollywood market he says, “There are way too many music labels and distributors in Bollywood and it will take a really long time for the independent music scene to get to that level.”
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