Charsur, the company for whom I have been exclusively recording my commercial and live albums, have today launched a new initiative. They will be offering select concerts as albums for download only. This means that these concerts will not be available as CDs, but rather as digital tracks only.
They have launched it with a concert of mine sung at the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD), Chennai on May 31st 2008. The entire concert is now available for a download price of Rs 250/- or US$12.98. Individual tracks can also be downloaded separately. The concert is available at the link given below.
The speciality of this new feature is that Charsur are doing it entirely at just cost and sharing the complete revenues with all the artistes directly through a royalty system. This means that for every track downloaded, all the artistes, who participated in that concert will get a share of the revenue. This is a first as normally accompanists do not figure in the royalty scheme of things with most Indian carnatic music production houses. Charsur has also decided to forego their share of the profit and give it to the artistes. As and when they release further concerts of mine I’ll put links up at the blog as well. Way to go Charsur!
Download Sanjay Subrahmanyan live at TTD
PS: When I began this blog, a few friends emailed me, saying that I should introduce a subscription model for the podcast, or atleast have a “Paypal donate” button like in most blogs, if not run Google ads. Personally I think this venture of Charsur is a sure shot better way, and if people who read this blog are genuine supporters of carnatic music, they will download legally distributed music by paying for it and ensuring that all artistes get their due.