Abhay Deol’s black eye

Abhay Deol has spoken up against the archaic rules of recording labels that refuse to give singers any royalty for their creative work. He sported a black eye at an awards ceremony protesting the pressure T-Series has put on him as a producer to get his music directors Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy to sign a contract ahead of the release of 'One By Two'. The actor-producer has the support of the Indian music industry in what has been a long-drawn battle even after a law in their favour exists.

Shankar Mahadevan, who is one of the composers of the film, says “The music composers association is formed for and by the composers and lyricists. We were informed by the association that the agreement we were being asked to sign is against the law.”

According to the Copyright Act (Amendment) Bill 2012, authors or song creators are owners of the copyright, which cannot be assigned to the producers or record labels, replacing the earlier system. The amendments also specify that it will now be mandatory for broadcasters — both radio and TV — to pay a royalty to the owners of the copyright each time a work of art is broadcast.

Abhay maintains that T-Series has been coaxing him to get the music composers to sign a contract with a clause that makes them forego the royalties to the record label instead. And the delay in doing so has resulted in the music of the film not releasing.

Bhushan Kumar, managing director, T-Series, has denied arm-twisting the producers and the composers. “It’s not true. We have released three songs already as these days we release the music of a film song-wise. We are not making any singer sign any contract — it’s the producers who give the rights to a music company and it’s the producer who takes the same right from the singers. All this noise about the royalty is false; it’s a publicity stunt because the music is not getting popular.”