Spotify removes ‘Kala Chashma,’ ‘Kalank,’ several other songs after license dispute with Zee Music

Here’s how fans reacted on Twitter

Zee Music had over a dozen singles on Spotify’s Daily Top 200 Songs chart in India. Among the most popular songs are ‘Maiyya Mainu’ from Jersey, Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas, ‘Makhna’ from Drive, and ‘Zaalima’ from Raees.

However, the removal of songs from Zee’s label has prompted anger among some Bollywood music enthusiasts, with some posting funny comments on Twitter and several Spotify users threatening to cancel their subscriptions. A user wrote that he would be shifting to YouTube Music. Meanwhile, another user wrote, “100-200 extra lelo lekin agreement renew kar lo guys”.

What’s the tiff between Spotify and Zee Music?

According to a spokesperson for Spotify, Spotify and Zee Music were unable to come to a licence agreement. Spotify has made an effort to come up with novel approaches to reach a deal with Zee Music during these talks, and they keep negotiating in good faith in the hopes of coming to a mutually satisfactory decision.

The report mentioned that this is not the first time Zee Music has been missing from a music site. It has happened in the past as well.

Spotify has been in India for four years now. Market research platform Statista says that as of the last quarter of 2022, the platform had 205 million paid subscribers all over the world. With 93.6 million YouTube subscribers, Zee Music Company is second only to T-Series, which has 238 million subscribers, in the world.