‘Royalty’
is one of the most debatable topics in the world of music. Royalty is the ‘payment to an owner for the use of property,
especially patents, copyrighted works, franchises or natural resources.’[1] Whenever
any Bollywood song becomes popular, it is known popularly in the name of its
Singers/Singer. But whenever it comes about paying royalty the song suddenly
becomes the intellectual property of its composer. The question remains is this
fair? However, as they say change is the law of nature, things are changing for
singers as well. Recently, around 700 singers have got their rightfully earned
royalty.
In the words of Aditi Singh Sharma, the
Indian singer famous for songs like ‘Sooraj Dooba Hai’, ‘Oye Oye’ etc., ‘If I’m not entitled to a song I’ve sung,
what am I left with? Similarly, a hit track is called a Ranbir-Deepika song. No
one calls it the Vishal Dadlani-Shalmali Kholgade song. As long as the issue of
royalty remains unresolved, singers will continue to be ignored’.[2].
The feud started after some renowned singers
were giving legal notices by music directors for performing the compositions
without their permission and without paying any royalty to them. However, after
a five year long battle, Indian Singers' Rights Association (ISRA) collected an
amount of approximately INR 52 lakh and distributed it amongst 730 Singers including
popular playback singers like KS Chitra, P Susheela, KJ Yesudas, SP
Balasubrahmanyam, Srinivas etc. ISRA CEO, Sanjay Tandon told The Hindu, “This ₹51-lakh royalty money will grow 10-fold
if and when radio channels, television channels and mobile companies start
paying us. Right now, only IPL teams, amusement parks and few other
establishments have paid the royalty money.”[3] With
only 25 per cent of royalties collected for now, ISRA believes next year, the
amount might be more than INR 1.2 crore.
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