Coach Thrasher

Inside Man Soundtrack: Chaiyya Chaiyya

We just spent a lazy Saturday at the movies and saw "Inside Man", which was OK (3 of 5 stars?). However the opening/closing song was a really great Hindi tune called Chaiyya Chaiyya. After getting home I immediately searched iTunes, and the rest of the internet for this song. I could only find it available in an album: the Inside Man soundtrack, and an album of other songs by A. R. Rahman.

Now, the song is not worth $9.99 for a whole album of songs I'm not interested in. The publishers are only selling it as an album though: no single of this song is available. There are many other ways to get music than by purchasing the album though.... like I could borrow the album from a friend and make a copy. Or, I could just search the internet using different search-tools to get the song.

I only wanted to pay for the single song, Chaiyya Chaiyya. Since I'm not able to pay for the item that I want via the music-industry controlled sources, I'm forced to find alternative means of getting it. This whole situation reminds me of how I have no sympathy for the music industry's losses due to music sharing. It forces it's products on the public, limiting choice in the marketplace, and charging outrageous prices for it's offering. Music sharing lets people have the music they want! The music industry should get a clue and find a solution that allows this! At the end of the day, I was able to download the song for free from the Good Weather for Airstrikes blog. Which will likely remove the file soon...

The whole experience reminds me of working at Liquid Audio and trying to get people to pay $3.99 for a hit single that is then "locked" to the download computer. The music industry would have never let us charge the $0.99 that we recommended for their DRMed content in 2000. Yet today they are finally making bank with iTunes. Man are they slooooooow.

Posted at 10:03AM May 08, 2006 by jason in General  |  Comments[0]