We now plan to fight it in court: lyricists Sameer on remix trend

Sameer, who has been in the showbiz for over three decades, penning for films like "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai", "Raja Hindustani", "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham", said he spoke to veteran screenwriter-lyricist Javed Akhtar, who is the chairman of Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS).

"What's happening is not right. We are totally against it and also planning to take this to court to fight this. Because we give rights to them (music labels) for a particular film only but they're recreating, utilising the songs in different films and projects.

"I spoke to Javed Akhtar, as he is the chairman of IPRS, and we all are planning to go to court. That's the only solution otherwise they won't stop," Sameer told PTI.

The lyricist was at the receiving end of the trend when his chartbuster "Dilbar Dilbar" was recreated by Bhushan Kumar-led T-Series for the John Abraham-starrer "Batla House" (2019).

Sameer said when he saw the credit plate of the song in an advertorial, he was gutted.

"They credited Shabbir Ahmed, who has written only two lines of the beginning. Rest all is my original work. In future, how will the coming generation come to know who's the original writer? The credits are done in a way, they'll think it's penned by someone else," he said.

"Most of the writers who are part of the recreations openly take credit for the new work, on stage and even in award functions. How can they do this?" he asked.

Recently, T-series launched the remix of the popular song "Masakali", which featured in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's "Delhi 6", from composer Tanishq Bagchi and singers Tulsi Kumar and Sachet Tandon . The recreated track didn't go down well with fans and the original creative team behind the song with composer AR Rahman, lyricist Prasoon Joshi and singer Mohit Chauhan expressing their disappointment.

Sameer said it's "absolutely unethical" that the music label doesn't even buy the rights from the original creators of a particular song before rehashing it.

"They're (labels) also not giving a single rupee to them. This is absolutely unethical. It's our moral right and they can't take it away. If you want to recreate and the original writer is still alive, why don't you approach them and ask them to write whatever extra you want?

"Because they know we won't be ready to give rights for this. The new writers don't have any morality, they need money to survive so they take up the work. We have to fight this."

For the lyricist, another issue with recreations is that they never retain the essence of the original.

"Even Javed sahab's song 'Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga' was recreated by somebody and the writing credit was given to someone else. The worst part is, the person who's writing, they don't know what are the original writer's thoughts. They write anything without connecting with the thought and that's sad," he added.