WHY PEOPLE DOWNLOAD SONGS?
The current scenario for the music industry is bad. Almost everyone is interested in downloading songs from the internet rather than buying audio CDs. A person may be having a strong word against piracy of movies but not against that of songs available on the internet. And there are various reasons for these-a pirated print of a movie may be of bad quality but pirated versions of songs are always perfect. In fact, there’s hardly any difference in quality in the downloaded version and CD version of a song. Secondly, one has to shell out 160 bucks to buy an audio CD but songs on the net are available for free of cost! Also, the songs are on the net are available on the very day that it is released in the market. Thus, this kind of piracy is thriving and people of all classes are downloading songs and stuffing them in their PCs or their phones and iPods.
The reason why I am talking about this is because of Tum Mile, the film which is releasing tomorrow. The wonderful songs of this film were out some 3-4 days before its official release in the market! Websites like songs.pk proudly mentioned on the home page that ‘Tum Mile-Exclusive’! The news spread like wild fire and its songs got the maximum number of downloads. This, of course, infuriated the director (Kunal Deshmukh), the producer (Mahesh Bhatt) and the music director (Pritam) who felt that this would hit the music sales. Mahesh Bhatt, on the other hand, saw a positive side to this tragedy. In his words, “Pirates have declared Tum Mile music a hit. I guess they know more than everyone else. They got to the consumer even before we opened sales. This pretty much speaks volumes about the kind of excitement that the product has generated over the months. The black-waala’s word is always more reliable than that of the critic!”
Notwithstanding the anger and positive side to this incident, no one bothered to ask as to how the songs got leaked to the internet in the first place. Some insider was involved, without doubt. Also, why no step is taken to stop piracy of songs? I feel the biggest reason as to why people download songs is because of the price of the audio CD which costs 160 bucks. Ironically, a VCD of a film nowadays is available at as low as Rs. 40! Then why the hell is audio CD priced so much? It’s high time that the prices are reduced to 50 or 60 bucks and I am sure that this will curb illegal downloading by almost 40-50%. Unfortunately, no one wants to do it.
Talking about the film, it stars Emraan Hashmi andSoha Ali Khan and is based on the July 26Mumbai floods. It is directed by Kunal Deshmukh, whose first film Jannat took a surprisingly huge opening and became one of the big hits of 2008. Tum Mile is also expected to open huge. But like everytime, it will be the content that would decide whether or not the film would sustain in the following days. Anything that comes from Bhatt stable is always interesting so let’s hope Tum Mile rocks!
P.S.: An interesting joke is being circulated on the net since 3 days. Keeping in mind the sudden showers in Mumbai since Tuesday, the SMS reads, “Now the Bhatts have made it rain to promote Tum Mile!”
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WHO WILL WATCH AAO WISH KAREIN?
The other release tomorrow is Aao Wish Karein (AWK), which marks Aftab’s debut as a producer. He has also acted in the film along with Aamna Sharif. It seems more like a kiddie film but unfortunately, like most Hindi films, no attempt was made to publicize AWK well. The film is not on the ‘movies to watch’ list on kids and thus, this would be yet another flop of 2009.
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AJAB PREM-4TH BIGGEST OPENER OF ALL TIMES!
Last Friday’s release Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani has thrown a surprise. No one expected it to open so huge. It is on the no 4 slot of biggest openers of all times after collectingRs 24.5 crores in 3 days! The first week collections are expected to close at around 41 crores. It may also cross Love Aaj Kal’s first week collect of Rs 42.87 crs which are the highest first week collections of 2009. Kudos to the entire team of this film!
