T-Series is no stranger to music piracy. It is now using that familiarity to hunt down those who filch its music
Some will say “Robber Baron” is an appropriate metaphor for T-Series, India’s largest music company. As critics point out, it’s an entity that got there by selling millions of audio cassettes for which it didn’t own copyrights; by exploiting ambiguities in copyright law. “Ji, hamaare business mein to yeh sab chalta hai,” (Sir, all this is normal in our business), a smiling Gulshan Kumar, the company’s founder, had said in an August 1997 interview.
(This story appears in the 03 July, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)