Dear brother/sister, I pray you are all well and in the shade of Allah's
blessings and grace. As I'm sure you are aware, I'm in a legal dispute with
Awakening and have been for over a year. They have released what they claim
to be my third album without, I can assure you, either my blessings or
consent. The tracks they have chosen to release are 'work in progress' and
are almost entirely based on stolen mp3 demos (and I'm sure you can tell
they are too) that are far from complete and are certainly not of the high
standard, lyrically, musically and technically, that I always insist upon.
For me to hear these incomplete and low quality recordings, that only
represent a sketch of what I would wish to release for my discerning
supporters, is painful beyond description.
My lawyers have contacted iTunes and they agreed to remove it from their
database - it is now NOT there. I do not want to ask my lawyers to write to
you because we are brothers and I know that you understand my position and
appreciate our 'long-term' future relationship as opposed to a quick HARAM
pound or two. Letters are currently being prepared to go out to ALL
distributors (including the majors such as Amazon etc) requesting that they
remove this album from their database
Under these unfortunate circumstances I wish to ask your help in also
removing all trace of this album from your catalogue. Please note that what
I'm asking is not an 'emotional' request, it is a legal one sent in the
spirit of brotherhood and good faith to yourselves. Apart from any other
consideration, as was the case with my previous albums, Awakening have made
no attempt whatsoever to obtain a license from the collection agencies
representing writers and composers which, throughout the developed world at
least, is a criminal offense. Meanwhile legal matters are being addressed
and will soon be hopefully rectified. God bless you and thank you for your
support.
Sami Yusuf
I pray all is well with you.
On the outset we would like to thank you for continued business with Awakening. We in Awakening have had a successful long standing business relationship with your company dating back to 2000. During the past 9 years Awakening has released books, audio lecture and music albums – all of which have been stocked by your company. You would agree that many of these products have been best-sellers and have generated good returns. Awakening has agreements with all its authors, speakers and artists to own the copyright of all the materials it has released.
Regarding the situation with our artist Sami Yusuf, we would like to clarify the following:
1. Awakening Records has signed an exclusive 5 album deal with Sami Yusuf. Under this record agreement, Awakening released the 3rd album Without You on the 12th of January 2009 for which Sami had been fully paid. Any third party – including the artist himself – that releases any of Sami Yusuf’s songs/albums can only do so by infringing the copyright of Awakening.
2. It has come to our attention that Sami Yusuf and/or certain “representatives” of Sami Yusuf may have been in contact with you claiming that the Without You album released by Awakening is not official and that we have no right to do so and that they are willing to replace the current album supplied by Awakening. This claim is baseless and the attempt at replacing or selling another version of the album is a violation of our exclusive agreement. The legal position is that Sami Yusuf is an Awakening artist and can only release albums with Awakening.
3.Awakening is hereby declaring it is fully liable – including legal liability - for the sale of Sami Yusuf’s 3rd album Without You. If there are is any correspondence from any third party regarding this, we strongly recommend you to ask them to deal with Awakening directly.
4. The claims made by Sami Yusuf in the email that you have / may have received is regrettable. Accusations of 'Haram' and 'criminal offense!' are simply outrageous not to mention completely untrue. We ask you overlook this shortcoming from Sami Yusuf.
It is regrettable that we are in this sad situation with our artist whose career we had launched and have managed for the past 6 years and we pray that the matter is resolved swiftly as possible.
Finally, you will be glad to know that Awakening is releasing 10 new high quality products for Ramadan this year including a new star artist album, as well as Mesut Kurtis’s second album and the long awaited Madina volume 2 from the best selling Life of Prophet Muhammad lecture series. We will keep you updated with new titles and look forward to receiving your order.
Kind regards,
Awakening