Mumbai: Mukesh Bhatt, Ramesh Sippy and a few others came together to announce the deferring of January 6 strike.
Bollywood producers had earlier proposed to going on strike on January 6th in protest over the proposed amendment to the Copyright act that makes it compulsory for the producers to share 50 per cent of the music royalties with lyricists and composers.
However, the producers have decided to defer the strike for a while as they have been promised by a few senior congress leaders that they will re-look into the matter. Producer Mukesh Bhatt told reporters that they have had meetings with few congress leaders like Ambika Soni (Information and Broadcasting Minister) and Kapil Sibal (Human Resource Development Minister) and they have been promised that they will be taking a re-look at both sides of the issue.
Bhatt said, “We have been told to have peaceful talks with the lyricists and music directors and look for an amicable solution where both the parties don’t feel cheated,” he said. He promised that they plan to have a meeting with lyricists and composers within 10-15 days.
Sippy said that the bandh was intended as a protest against the government’s bias towards the lyricists and music composers. “But now that we have been promised fair play, we would expect things to be more peaceful,” he said. Sippy also said that they have nothing personal against Javed Akhtar, who has been leading the fight for the lyricists and composers. “I am sure he has his side of the story, he must be fighting for something unjust but the government heard only their side of the story and our voices remained unheard. Now that we have met the ministers, we feel more positive about justice being done to us too and we will be happy to see justice for both the sides,” he said.
However, the President of Film Federation of India, T.P. Agarwal was more volatile, when he said that producers are not ready to give away rights to what is rightfully theirs. About banning Javed Akhtar he said, there was no conscious decision taken on that matter. “We had simply advised producers not to sign him till the matter is resolved. We will now discuss the matter with him,” he said.
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