Sony Music launches music streaming and download service

Sony Music today launched a music service called Sony Music Jive. The service allows consumers to download and stream music for free from Sony’s catalogue. The company will be premiering content exclusively for its Xperia devices, with the first one being a single from the soundtrack of the movie Ek Thi Daayan.

The service is different from Nokia’s Music Unlimited store, Saavn and iTunes in quite a few ways. Nokia Music Unlimited offers only downloads, Saavn offers only streaming, and all the music content on iTunes is paid.

Speaking at the launch, Shridhar Subramaniam, President India and Middle East, Sony, said, “Sony Music Jive is our foray into directly engaging with consumer by offering them a compelling digital music service. We have been doing a number of digital innovations and the launch of this new hybrid application is another such. I am confident that with Sony Music Jive, the Xperia handsets would be a preferred choice for the customers as it gives them and unmatched offering of songs and an easy and legal access to the global catalogue of Sony Music.”

Sony Music is launching its music service in India

Kenichiro Hibi, Managing Director, Sony India, added, “We are excited to partner with Sony Music for the all new Sony Music Jive. Indian consumers are very passionate about music and we feel this compelling service will be huge reason for customers to choose our new range of exciting Xperia Smartphones. We have always been associated with making quality phones and this partnership allows us to leverage our strengths with our group company. This app fits in very well with our brand image of offering a great musical experience to our customers.”

As per a press release, Sony Music Jive gives you access to artists such as Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Whitney Houston, Aerosmith, Bob Dylan, Micheal Jackson, Santana, AR Rahman, Shakira, Beyonce, Keisha, Pitbull, KK, Lucky Ali, Strings, Daler Mehendi, Harris Jayraj, Kailash Kher and more. The service will be first launched on Sony Mobiles’ new range of Xperia smartphones and will be made available for other devices and operating systems in the coming months.

The service is free for the first six months from the date of purchase and consumers can then opt to subscribe to it after the initial free period. It is being powered by Indent—a music tech start-up formed by Infibeam. The service uses a scalable cloud platform.

Users can browse through multiple genres, ranging from pop, rock and hip hop to dance and Indian regional. The songs can be downloaded as MP3s with variable and adaptive streaming technology. Sony Music will offer users exclusive content from Sony Music via ‘First on Jive’. It will have International artists and Bollywood soundtracks, celebrity curated playlists and content only available through Jive.