Legendary rock star Shafin Ahmed revealed some “sad but true” incidents behind the current sorry state of the audio industry in light of his over three decades of musical career on June 11 at a press meet. The vocalist of the legendary band Miles told a heartbreaking saga of how they had to struggle due to the dishonest dealings of the recording companies they came across in their early career.
“We could not track how much copies were sold in the hit albums like ‘Protyasha’ and ‘Protishruti’ which are among the most sold albums in the history of Bangladeshi band music. The production companies made huge money out of these but we did not get the deserving money. The problem has become even more acute right now,” said Shafin.
According to the gifted musician, latest infiltration of internet technology and the easy access to DVD-R, as the government lifted tax from the commodity, are the major reasons why the musicians of this country are being financially deprived. Due to the availability of MP3’s that includes over 100 songs for taka 30 to 50, the audience are reluctant to buy the authentic CD’s of the artists, thus depriving them of their royalty.
He termed downloading songs for free from illegal websites as another means through which artists are being rundown. Recording companies are only signing musicians who have sponsors, thus discouraging young artists and de-motivating them from moving forward to pursue their passion.
The burning issue of piracy and the need to create awareness among people was stated by the singer: “It is better to take action than to talk about creating awareness and for that reason I have decided to digitise my songs for monitoring and collecting revenues from the internet sites that hosts my music.”
Subsequently he urged to government for banning the illegal websites that enable the listeners to download Bangla songs for free.
While discussing with journalists, the fact has been revealed that the owners of recording company are involved knee deep in piracy and in the process cheating the artist of their revenue.
“The recording companies of our country should be more accommodating to artists and they should not take advantage of singers who are not aware of their worth to the audience,” states Shafin.
“People should be made aware that music is a commodity just like everything else. If you are willing to pay for any consuming product then it is more than fair to expect that you should be more than willing to pay for the music that is a source of entertainment to you,” he added.
Shafin becomes brand ambassador of ME Label
To control the piracy on internet websites, the rock star has signed up with ME Label as the brand ambassador of the company and also for digitising his previous and upcoming songs on June 22.
The singer has further handed over his 22 previous songs which the company will digitally distribute to legal websites containing Bangla songs.
“The market of physical CDs is already down. The trend is factual in the western world as well. The digital distribution is the future of the audio industry and we should move ahead with technology and embrace the changes,” said the seasoned musician.
The vice president of the company Armin Musa is a musician herself and informs Dhaka Tribune: “Bangla music has been pirated and streamed for free for years, amounting to thousands of dollars of unclaimed royalty from these sites. ME Label stands for providing legal rights and royalty for artists.”
iTunes, Amazon, GooglePlay and Rapshody are among the international online outlets to whom ME Label digitally distributes audio and video content. They also monetise streaming hits from free websites like You Tube, Spotify and LastFM.
