Monday, July 11, 2011

Why Hungama.com is an Epic #fail

Indian music is synonymous with piracy. People from all walks of life however law abiding they may be in reality, find this urge to download songs for free from shady unverified sites irresistible.
But can the music labels blame these people? Till a few years back, there was no option to download legal music. Then came Hungama.com offering music downloads at great prices. And so started the era of the Indian version of iTunes music store...or so we thought.
Hungama.com has the worst customer service on the planet. I have done business with innumerable online portals and Hungama.com is clearly the worst of the lot. Its shocking how a company in the 21st century can survive with such callous attitude towards its customers. Repeated mails, no matter what the complaint or no matter how harsh the language yields no replies. This obviously comes from my personal experience.
Tracks/songs at Hungama.com are offered at such low bitrates, you are left to wonder if its really worth the money you are spending. 128kbps is so low a bitrate, it transforms music tracks from music to noise. Its a shame that when obscure music portals across the planet are able to offer downloads at 256/320kbps, the biggest music portal in the country, which apparently aims to curb piracy is offering extreme low quality downloads. Its a national shame that such a company is in charge of music content's online distribution in India.
After such harassments can the music industry really blame people for not buying music? In an era when lossless music is available across the web (FLAC), isn't it a shame that paid portals are offering music downloads at a measly 128kbps?
Can then these Hungama folks and the people from the music industry really blame people who head over to torrent portals to download music?