Actor-turned-producer Abhay Deol, who stood by the music composers of his film 'One By Two', Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, in their fight against music mogul T-Series, says that he would never do anything illegal.
The film is due to hit the screens on January 31 but the music has not been released yet due to a royalty issue between the composers and T-series.
Abhay, who sported a black eye during the recent Screen Awards as a symbol of protest, says, “The onus is with Viacom 18 as I have sold my product to them. I am unhappy about the fact that T-Series wanted me to sign an illegal agreement. Having debuted as a producer with 'One By Two', production is new to me. Agreements were made and things were going smoothly, but somewhere in the middle of the completion of the music, I was asked to sign some other agreement which did not go down well with me and I refused to go against the law. Also, I am not a learned person legally so it becomes very difficult for me to understand between the lines.”
“However, what I understand is that my music will never get a platform. Maybe someone can download it from YouTube but getting CDs etc. will not be possible."
Contradiction
The problem seemed to be sorted when a statement on behalf of T-series through Viacom 18 stated: “There was some misunderstanding regarding the factual positions and we are happy that the same stands clarified and resolved between all parties. ”
But barely two days later, we received the following message from T-series chairman and managing director, Bhushan Kumar: “We regret to inform you that we have decided to relinquish the music rights of 'One By Two'. Although we had all the rights from Viacom, we are unable to release the music album in the absence of valid link agreements between Viacom and composers (Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy) of the album.”
