The T-Series Story

T-Series & Music Piracy Contd...

These were fairly successful. He even acted in, sang for and directed a few of the videos of such songs. These were run on the state-owned television channel Doordarshan. T-Series also began producing Hindi films. One of the company's first ventures, the musical 'Aashiqui,' was a huge success. This was followed by many more movies, a majority of which flopped. However, the music of these movies was a success in almost all the cases. The success of 'Bewafa Sanam,' one of the many mediocre T-Series movies starring Gulshan's actor-brother Kishen Kumar, took the whole industry by surprise. Gulshan even invented the concept of the 'music bank' where tunes were stored till a movie or a record was identified to 'fit' them into.

Things were going on rather smoothly – till Gulshan released a cover version of what was reportedly one of India's biggest blockbuster movie, 'Hum Aapke Hain Kaun' in 1997, violating the three-year waiting period stipulated by the Supreme Court. This time around, the attack on GCI's profits was too strong to be ignored and the company filed a suit against T-Series. In the same year, a few music industry players approached the former finance minister V P Singh, demanding that Gulshan be punished for violating copyright laws and pirating music. However, V P Singh reportedly⁶ dismissed them saying, "Don't come to me with your hard luck stories. You've no marketing strategies so you haven't discovered the marketplace. Gulshan has. And you want me to punish him for his entrepreneurial ability?"

As the 'Hum Aapke Hain Kaun' case went to the courts, Gulshan was murdered. With Gulshan's death began a period of uncertainty for the T-Series group. The music company was not doing very well as Gulshan had stopped buying music rights from outside⁷ and the T-Series' films had failed. The other businesses were all relatively new and not yet well established.

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6] Life in the twilight zone, www.rediff.com, September 2, 1997.

7] Gulshan had stopped buying the music rights from non T-Series producers, alleging that they were charging exorbitant rates. His decision to produce movies was also led by the fact that he did not have to buy the music rights for them. However, after his death, T-Series began buying the rights to film music again. The company's sales improved significantly with quite a few of its soundtracks becoming successes.

Case Details

Case Code : BECG010
Themes: Ethics in Business
Case Length : 08 Pages
Period : 1970-2001
Organization : T-Series, Super Cassettes, HMV, Venus
Pub Date : 2002
Teaching Note : Available
Countries : India
Industry : Media, Entertainment & Information

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