Bollywood is not happy with Spotify (SPOT), as a licensing agreement sidelines Zee Music Co.
Zee is the second-largest music label in India, sporting a 93.7 million subscriber base on YouTube.
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What Happened Between Spotify and Zee Music?
Negotiations between Spotify and Zee collapsed last week, resulting in the music streaming giant cutting Zee Music from the Spotify playlist. That scenario hurts both parties, as recent Bollywood number-one hits like "Apna Bana Liya" from the movie
"Bhediya" are no longer available on the platform.
“Spotify and Zee Music have been unable to reach a licensing agreement,” Spotify stated in comments to India’s Business Today. “Throughout these negotiations, Spotify has tried to find creative ways to strike a deal with Zee Music, and will continue our good faith negotiations in hopes of finding a mutually agreeable solution soon.”
Other top hits like "Maiyya Mainu" from "Jersey" (2022), from the movie "Kalank" (2019) and "Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas" (2019), "Makhna’ from Drive (2019)," "Kala Chashma" from "Baar Baar Dekho" (2016), and "Zaalima" from "Raees" (2017) also made the "must listen" Bollywood cut list.
India's music fans are up in arms over the split, with the blame falling mostly on Spotify, which relies on its massive subscription base to generate revenue. In late January, Spotify became the first music streaming service to top 200 million paid subscribers.
That’s not carrying a lot of weight in India right now.
Said Zee music fan Saurabh Chavn on Twitter, “This is my petition to start playing Zee songs on the platform, otherwise I am going to unsubscribe from premium membership.”
