Pritam believes music composers today are neither given moral rights of their work nor the respect they deserve. The music director said the quality of the music scene in the Hindi film industry is taking a hit as the artistes do not enjoy the kind of power they used to earlier.
"You need to protect music directors. The quality is going down because you're not glamorising the respect we should get. "Earlier a composer and a lyricist had power. Today you'll become a slave under music companies if you don't create a brand," said Pritam.
The composer said many music directors are not taking composing seriously as singing is "a more lucrative option". "If you sing, you can do shows which has a lot of money. Due to this, creativity is suffering. You don't have your performing rights or royalty.
"For a hit song you'll get a buy-out and a newcomer would get very less money and on top of that you don't even get moral rights - your name doesn't even appear anywhere." Pritam decried how composers and lyricists are nowhere to be seen in the hierarchy of the music industry.
"In earlier days on radio, singer, composer and lyricist were mentioned together. Today, at the most the singer's name will be mentioned. Composers and lyricists are nowhere. The metadata doesn't consist of these two names. "If you don't celebrate the creators or back them up, they get lost. There is no publishing right or royalty and then you don't even get the moral right," he said.
The composer was speaking at the studio launch of JAM8. The music production platform, founded by him, allows upcoming musicians to have the facilities to nourish their talent and get work in the industry.
Pritam, 47, said it is one of a kind "incubation" studio space for nurturing talents. "I have created my brand, people can identify my songs today. But if you don't do this, the newcomers won't get branding. If you don't give them respect like Anand Bakshi, Nadeem Shravan, RD Burman, they won't stay music directors.
"This is my way of giving back whatever I've learned from the industry," he added.
