New Delhi, April 10 -- Music labels are struggling to monetize their rights, often unable to even recover the amount they shelled out to purchase a Hindi film album. Audio streaming platforms have lowered their pay rates (sum paid per stream for a song) by about half over the past few months, as audience preferences shift away from music to other genres of entertainment such as stand-up comedy and podcasts on YouTube.

But this decline in listenership, and the resultant fall in revenues have failed to move producers to lower the price at which they sell their film music rights to music labels, who in turn licence them to streaming platforms. Producers backing big-star projects have been particularly rigid when it comes to renegotiating pr...