Amaal Mallik Responds To Tanishk Bagchi's Saiyaara Royalty Dispute: 'Fought The System Alone'

Composer Tanishk Bagchi's dispute with Yash Raj Films (YRF) over the Saiyaara title track has made headlines. He claimed his royalty fee of Rs 8 lakh hasn't been paid yet by the studio. The composer's post switfly gained traction. He also claimed on his now-deleted Instagram post that his earnings from the song are disproportionate to the seismic success it became.

On Sunday, Amaal Mallik took to his X and shared a picture of himself looking into the camera with a deadpan expression. He also penned a note in the caption. However, he did not explicitly mention Tanishk Bagchi or the music label YRF. "People in the music industry waking up 10 years late, where were you in 2015 when I was fighting the system alone :)," Amaal wrote, adding that while the industry is finally acknowledging the problem, he had raised the alarm bell about it much earlier.

Amaal Mallik's Earlier Comments On India's Music Royalties

In March this year, Amaal had flagged the economic reality that most music directors face, noting that they usually only receive a flat fee, even when they create hit songs. "Javed Akhtar sahab fought very hard for it. I get salary of Rs 75,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh after doing one song," he said, highlighting the steep disparity between upfront payments and long-term royalty earnings.

He stressed, "The actor feels that if they are standing in a song so the song will be a hit. That is only 50% true. The rest 50% credit goes to lyric writer, music composer, director and then last comes to singer. Singers are important, but they are not the creators of the song. These four pillars of the sound are all needing rights of the song. Music producers don’t have right to their songs but in the west that category also has rights to the song". After covering production costs and paying his team, Amaal's own share can be modest even on his biggest hits.

In his now-deleted Instagram post, Tanishk wrote that "Rs 8 lakh feels like peanuts", adding that the fee he had received for composing the song was entirely spent on producing it. He clarified that his intention was not to seek sympathy but to start a larger conversation about how music creators are compensated.

"All collaborators were paid as per the terms of their respective contracts and royalty payments were made as per the mutually agreed arrangements," Yash Raj Films responded to the post. Tanishk deleted his post shortly.