It is not just the beauty of the tune that determines the right price for a piece of music
Ashutosh Pathak wouldn’t look out of place at a rock concert. The ear studs and chamois leather loafers give him an uber-cool look. A sly ability to seduce the guitar suggests Pathak spends most of his time in a music studio. He does that with his band Smoke, but he has also taken upon himself the task of bringing some legal order to the tune world. In his avatar as co-owner of Blue Frog, he runs a nightclub, a jingle production house, a recording label and a live-event management company. “No laws apply to this business of buying and selling musical tunes because it is so subjective and [that] makes it tougher to do business,” he says. This Wild West situation has seen some notable spats in the Rs. 280-crore Indian jingle industry in the last two years.
And it is hard to value music. “Some people believe that by looking at [a] client’s marketing expenditure and its relation to sales increase there may be a way but I don’t think so. How do I say ‘Music caused half of the 50 percent sales increase that happened after the ad was aired?’ I can’t,” says Pathak.
Jingle makers are taking the easy way out by selling their music outright to companies so that there can be no further disputes. This way, both the company and the artist are happy and there are no payments in perpetuity or royalties to be given.
(This story appears in the 03 July, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)