Legal song downloads fade away in face of piracy

Middle East online music services chose a different track, as iTunes-style downloads prove unsustainable due to endemic piracy.

Online music stores are moving away from an iTunes-style model. AFP

Online music services in the Middle East are abandoning iTunes-style song downloads, with one saying the business model is unsustainable because of the region's endemic piracy problem.

Two of the region's fledgling digital music sites are relaunching to offer streaming of songs, where subscribers can legally listen to unlimited tracks but do not download them.

Music Master, a Saudi Arabian online music service that went live last year, said selling individual songs and albums had not proved to be sustainable.

The site, which offered 3 million songs at launch, typically sells albums for Dh30 (US$8.16) and individual tracks for Dh3.

But the Music Master sales site is going offline in a few weeks' time as the company abandons its business model of offering downloads and focuses instead on streaming.

Saeed Elajou, the managing director of Music Master, blamed the reluctance of consumers in the Middle East to pay for music for the decision to suspend the site.

"Piracy is still a big factor," said Mr Elajou. "Consumers here are just not prepared to … pay for music. I personally think there's just not enough regulation here in terms of combatting piracy."

The site is owned by a Saudi company, also called Music Master, which is the main regional distributor of physical CDs and DVDs. It launched the digital music platform having secured the rights from some of the world's largest record labels.

But the Music Master site did not flourish, said Mr Elajou. "We got a good number of subscribers to start. But the numbers sort of flattened out."

While the Music Master website is still live, it is to go offline in a few weeks prior to a relaunch.

"We're also trying to rework our service towards more of a streaming service, rather than an à la carte download service," he said. "It has got to be done via a streaming service, where they can consume all the music they want."

The revised Music Master site is set to be launched in the second half of this year, or early next year, Mr Elajou said.

The relaunched site was likely to offer unlimited streaming of music via mobile phones or desktop computers.

Legal music-download services such as Music Master typically pay licence fees to record labels for the right to sell songs online.

Mr Elajou said the music labels had unrealistic expectations of the size of the Middle East's online market.

"The labels who are paving the way in terms of judging the size of the market need to come back to earth. More realistic licence fees is what we're talking about," he said.

Another regional online-music site also said it was focusing on selling subscriptions to music-streaming services.

UrFilez, which launched in Bahrain in 2010, originally pursued a music downloads business, but is now focusing on streaming.

While UrFilez said it would also offer some downloads of songs, its co-founder Hassan Miahsaid this would not be its main source of revenue.

"We do not believe downloads is a very exciting business for the future," Mr Miah told The National last month.

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