Amaal Mallik on his Instagram story, called out the music industry, for giving no royalties or budgets to the creators. Mallik also said that, barring a small cream of people who claim that things are changing for the better in the industry, most artists aren’t even aware about their rights as creators.
He said adding that until six years back, “not one song on any label” from India credited the music producers, the live musicians or the recording and mixing engineers, which, according to Mallik, is why, there aren’t many international collaborations.
“As far as the IPRS and Royalties issue goes, half of the creators I’ve had a chat with don’t even exactly know how this functions. They don’t seem to know their own rights and what they’re justified in asking for,”
“Musicians from outside India don’t work with us easily because we have no royalties for the musicians or the music producers in our country. We work on a buy out system. Music is a team effort and all of us, including musicians and programmers/producers, are also the backbone of a song along with the authors.”
While the 30-year-old feels that the “seniors hopefully” are getting their “master royalties” for their film or non film projects”, he rues, newer musicians are falling prey to ethically and legally questionable demands by the film producers and music labels.
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An artist is left two options, according to Amaal. “You either go jobless or meet that substandard demand and release songs which even you know deep down aren’t good enough,” he says.
“Music composers have to do scratches, almost fully produced tracks, without any compensation so that a director producer and label can bank it or put it in their film, but that cost is going from the composers’ own pocket. Singers in turn too, are forced to sing scratches for free and are given the usually false incentive, ‘Aapko break de rahe hain’,” he adds.
Acknowledging the mafia-like behaviour of music labels, Mallik feels that “right now its a dog eat dog industry” which has made them, as an industry, “succumb” to “short term success” over longevity, not knowing, that latter will earn “us the buck” for a longer time and “the math” will be the same or even more. “Now, it’s tough to ask someone to live with a piece or art and let it grow on you. I have nothing against groupism, but at least make sure what you create stands a chance to meet with some quality,” he says.