Krishan Kumar (left) and CEO Bhushan Kumar (right), the brother and son of Gulshan Kumar, respectively, during the audio release of Aashiqui 2 (2013) engaged in more straightforward copyright infringement in the form of pirate releases of popular hits, and it often illegally obtained film scores before the release of the film to ensure that its recordings were the first to hit the market. The company built its catalog through a variety of quasi-legal and illegal practices. T-Series was a profoundly disruptive force in the Indian music market, in large part because it was a tremendously successful pirate. Researchers Lawrence Liang and Ravi Sundaram wrote: According to Rediff, while Kumar 'was involved in piracy, he was passionately market- and consumer-driven.' The company also took advantage of loopholes in copyright law allowing for the release of cover versions of songs, which T-Series would then flood the market with. Back then, the Indian audio cassette market was small-scale, with widespread piracy, but there was growing demand for cassette music. The company initially sold pirated Bollywood songs, prior to releasing original music. T-Series was founded on 11 July 1983 by Gulshan Kumar, at the time a fruit juice seller in the Daryaganj neighbourhood of Delhi. T-Series also have other channels dedicated to content in several Indian languages including Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi and Rajasthani. The T-Series channel primarily features content in the Hindi language, and occasionally several other languages including Bhojpuri, Punjabi and English. It became the most-viewed YouTube channel in January 2017. The company's main T-Series channel on YouTube primarily shows music videos as well as film trailers. The company's YouTube team consists of 13 people at the T-Series headquarters.

On YouTube, T-Series has a multi-channel network, with 30 channels (including Lahari Music) that have over 360.9 million subscribers as of June 14, 2021. Since then, T-Series has been led by his son Bhushan Kumar and younger brother Krishan Kumar. However, Gulshan Kumar was murdered by the Mumbai mafia syndicate D-Company on August 12, 1997.

They eventually became a leading music label with the release of Aashiqui (1990), composed by NadeemвЂ“Shravan, which sold 20 million copies and became the best-selling Indian soundtrack album of all time. Their breakthrough came with the soundtrack for the 1988 Bollywood blockbuster Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, composed by Anand-Milind, written by Majrooh Sultanpuri, and starring Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla, which became one of the best-selling Indian music albums of the 1980s, with over 8 million sales. Kumar, initially a fruit juice seller in Delhi, founded T-Series to sell pirated Bollywood songs before the company eventually began producing new music. While best known as a music label, T-Series has also had some moderate success as a film production company. T-Series also owns and operates the most-viewed and the most-subscribed YouTube channel, with 199 million subscribers and 171 billion total views as of November 22, 2021. As of 2014, T-Series is India's largest music record label, with up to a 35% share of the Indian music market, followed by Sony Music India and Zee Music. It is primarily known for Bollywood music soundtracks and Indi-pop music. Super Cassettes Industries Private Limited, doing business as T-Series, is an Indian music record label and film production company founded by Gulshan Kumar on July 11, 1983.

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