MUMBAI: The court case filed by composer Ram Sampath against Rakesh Roshan’s Krazzy 4, has been settled out of court.
Roshan has paid the said amount of Rs 20 million to Sampath. The movie will release on 11 April without any song cuts.
In December last year, Roshan had contacted Sony Ericsson for the purpose of using some portion of the music in the ad featuring Hrithik Roshan.
In an official statemenet, Rakesh Roshan said, "I had liked the music piece of the ad I saw on TV in which Hrithik is performing as a brand ambassador for Sony Ericsson. For the purpose of using some portion of the said music I requested Sony Ericsson and in response I was granted permission of Sony Ericsson by the letter dated 13 December, 2007. Consequently in good faith and relying on authorization of Sony Ericsson I recorded with the required modification retaining only four bars of the THUMP track. I was surprised and shocked on 24 March, 2008 to receive a notice from the solicitors of Ram Sampat containing allegations of infringement of his work. I contacted Sony Ericsson and was told that they issued the letter by mistake and infact they didn’t have the rights."
The statement added, "Before I could think of any solution, Mr Sampat filed a suit in Bombay High Court framing all wild and frivolous allegations of infringing his copyright of said music piece of Thump. It was really a shocking development because instead of approaching me to know the facts he straight away went to court. It was evident from going through the plaint and annextures there that he was preparing the suit for a long time. It is interesting to note that the Krazzy 4 music was launched in February 2008 and the promos containing the alleged infringed work was released on TV on all channels in the end of February 2008. All these days Ram Sampat chose to wait for all these days and instituted the suit in High Court just a few days before the release of the film. This was a well planned scheme to harass me. I was required to be in Court when the prints of the film had already been delivered all over the world. Finding myself caught in a helpless and to keep up my commitment to distribute and respect feelings of the audience I had no way but to succumb to the pressure and to compromise on the matter, thereby seeing that the film is released on the announced date. To honor all these commitments, moral and professional I paid the price to Ram Sampat who strangulated me just days before the release."
The movie’s song Break Free, which is picturised on Shah Rukh Khan and Hirthik Roshan, is the one which has the Sony Ericsson music. Sampath has composed the Sony Ericsson jingle, which is picturised on the company’s brand ambassador Hrithik Roshan.
On 10 April, the court had passed an order that the Roshans will have to delete the track Break Free, if they wanted to release the film on Friday. In addition to this, they were also liable to pay a monetary compensation of Rs 25,00,000 to Sampath.
The music of Krazzy 4 has been composed by Rajesh Roshan.
The official statement from the Roshans states that the court case against Rakesh Roshan’s Krazzy 4, directed by Jaideep Sen has been vacanted and the film will release on 11 April with all three item songs included in the film featuring Hrithik Roshan, Shah Rukh Khan and Rakhi Sawant.
When Businessofcinema.com contacted Rakesh Roshan he informed that the movie will be releasing in full.
At the time of filing this story, Sony Ericsson product group marketing head Dhiraj Soni was not available for comment.
