Twitter Controversies of 2011 : Bollywood News

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that Beauty without expression is boring. Well, it just cant get better than this for all the Bollywood folks, who use Twitter, the most popular social networking tool as a platform to connect with their fans and friends. On one hand, though Twitter can be used as a unique and new age marketing tool, on the other, it can also double up as a stage for emotional outbursts (read weapon of verbal destruction).

Bollywood Hungama brings to you some of the controversial tweets that ignited a spat between many.

Javed Akhtar - Mahesh Bhatt copyright row

This year began with a war of words between two Bollywood bigwigs Javed Akhtar and Mahesh Bhatt, who started their (in)famous twi- fight over the issue of copyrights between lyricists, musicians and film producers. Javed Akhtar was upset with Bhatt, who took a few producers to meet the government officials to arrive at a solution.

We present some excerpts of the same:

Javed Akhtar (JA): In the so-called copyright controversy, masks have slipped off some faces. The real face of the saviour of the downtrodden is exposed. Mahesh Bhatt who claims to be an activist is actually fighting a losing battle for depriving authors of their rights. What a shame!

Mahesh Bhatt (MB): It consists of small chieftains who delude themselves to be emperors! The film industry is an army of generals. Everyone gives orders no one takes one!

JA: All over the world author/composers get royalties but here they are taken away by one-sided contracts. You are not fooling any one. You represent the vested interest in this matter and stand totally exposed. It is strange that Mahesh Bhatt wants to protect the rights of Zakir Naik but not of Pt Ravi Shankar, Rehman, Sonu Nigam and Javed Akhtar.

MB: If what you allege about me is true, it should not hurt me. And if it is not true even then it should not hurt me. We cant get far by merely demonizing our producer brother. A wrong perception has been built up, giving an impression that composers do not make money from a hit song. The fact is that the composers and singers make millions by performing on hit songs by way of live shows.