NEW DELHI: Even as the courts have resolved the issue of some reported agencies by ruling that they had no authority to collect royalty on behalf of singers and musicians, ‘A Band of the Boys’ core member and actor Karan Oberoi has made a strong plea for giving royalties to musicians of the industry to survive.

In an open letter to music companies, he has referred to the egotism prevailing within the roots of the Indians.

“We as Indians are basically corrupt by nature. It is possibly a part of our genetic coding and we have begun to believe that it’s perfectly okay to be self-serving, whatever be the cost to someone. And when that someone is a creator who is going to starve and be deprived of his legitimate earnings, while some “industry” or “music label” is going to laugh all the way to the bank, you know we have hit a moral degradation, that’s difficult to surpass.”

Karan urges the music companies “to make money by all means but just give the deserver his legitimate hard earned money for God’s sake.”

The debate was sparked off after Javed Akhtar became the member of Indian Performing Rights Society in 2010 and went on to file a complaint against the non-distribution of royalties by it. The issue gain momentum after the Enforcement Directorate summoned Aditya Chopra, the chairman of Yashraj Films, Shridhar Subramaniam, vice-president of Sony Music India and Devraj Sanyal, MD-CEO of Universal Music, recently.

Expressing concern towards innumerable musicians and singers who die in abject poverty as they are not paid their share, Karan wrote, “Forget about getting royalties, most of the time the vulnerability and naïveté of an artist are taken completely for granted. This happens owing to the lack of awareness of what he deserves. We feed that misinformation.”

He said there were so many geniuses who had died in abject poverty after creating cult classics. “Such songs till date are adding to the ever-expanding “car collection” of some head honchos. I have myself never got a penny as an artist from any society or publishing house, after doing three biggest hits of indie pop.”

“It’s such a sorry picture. The soul of a society perishes in the death of an artist. Not giving him his due is akin to death,” he added.