Indian Music -Where is the original music - Page 4

buhat mehnat kerty hu apppppppppp
gd job 😊

Originally posted by: qwertyasdfgh

I dont see anything wrong in copying except for its moral inappropriateness... I mean just cos a music comes as copied doesnt make it less melodious.... Why would the listener care about the moral burdens of the MD.


There is a bunch of other things which come with it like... a guy who copies has hardly any knowledge of music, will always give music with "already heard" feeling, will wear out soon...

These implications are good enough to detest MD's who copy... but the music itself should be considered good if it sounds good and acceptable..... 😊

As you have said these implications are good enough to detest MD's who copy. Honestly after that I will not have any more appetite for them kind.

qwerty ji where I come from and grew up with it is even big crime to pick up a coin from the street do not belive in finder's keeper. The word piracy is still in the Dictionary also the word morality. Please do remember not to patronize that kind of culture which always Borrow or depended on other's we are in phase of changing for good and better not to destroy ourself and the future. Well my friend that is my opinion. I think Dawn also mentioned on her quote. On the other hand lifting of compositions either complete or part of it , with out giving credit to original creator is a kind of crime.

Originally posted by: Dawn05

bump

Mere taraf se bhi - Aur ek DANKA!!!😆😆😆

Originally posted by: Dawn05

Thank you Qwest ji for starting this interesting topic and thanks VJ for comparative list. 👏 👏 👏

I think creating a piece of music with some inspiration but still giving it a unique style is totally different than plagiarism.On the other hand lifting of compositions either complete or part of it , with out giving credit to original creator is a kind of crime.

i'd go a bit further and say it's not all black or white, original or plagiarism. it's different shades of gray. at some level, most everything is derived from things before.

to my mind, there are other aspects too. on one side, i agree with the sentiment of various members that if someone can copy "well" and make that music accessible to and more enjoyable for everyone, then it's a good thing.

but that's like taking the drug formulas developed through hard research and investment by one firm and making them freely available without patent protection for everyone to copy. let's even say those drugs were life-saving. making those drugs generic wld surely lower costs for the consumers and benefit them. but then where is the incentive for the "original" composer or drug researcher to spend huge amounts of time and money developing new creations in the future? in the short-run, generic copying may benefit most people. but in the long-run it can kill the creative process which is so important for developing newer drugs or in this case reversing the decline in the quality of music. of course, there are also ethical issues on both sides, but even from a developmental standpoint, there are two sides to the coin IMO

This is a 2001 article.

Plagiarism or bridging the divide?


By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, MAY 21. ''Aao bachchon tumhe dikhayen jhaanki Hindustan ki...'' (come children let us show you glimpses of India), is a popular Hindi film song of the 1950s. ''Aao bachchon tumhe karayen sair Pakistan ki...'' (children, let us take you on a tour of Pakistan) is an equally hit song of the same period across the border.

After picturising the song in ''Jagriti'', actor- director- producer Ratan Kumar migrated to Pakistan and remade it into ''Bedaari'' (Urdu translation of Jagriti or awareness) and used the same tune for a song aimed at igniting a similar emotion, nay patriotic zeal, among the listeners.

Ratan Kumar, of course, belonged to an era where you took pride in your work and only re-mixed your own tunes. But the trend he unknowingly pioneered was to take on new nuances. Even the paradigm that ''culture'' knows no boundaries, changed. If ever there was a cultural exchange between India and Pakistan, it was through films, specifically film music.

''Dhun hamari, tumhare naam hui'', a recent two-part television programme on PTV, explored this theme and kicked off a major debate about plagiarism and also about boundaries and culture in the local media.

Virtual chargesheet

Presented by two eminent theatre personalities - Mr. Shoaib Mansoor and Mr. Zia Mohyeddin - it was virtually a chargesheet against many big names in the Indian music industry. How they had been lifting without ever acknowledging the source. Tunes ranging from semi-classical, ghazals to folk and film were used without a qualm, often the lyrics doing gross injustice to the original. Consider these - Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's famous Sufi chant ''Allah hu, Allah hu, Allah hu...'' became ''I love you, I love you, I love you...'' in the film ''Auzaar'', and ''Dum mast kalandar mast mast'' was transformed into ''Tu cheez bari hai mast mast...'', a sensuous Raveena Tandon dance number in Mohra, tune, words et al.

It is an amazing tale of how music, lyrics and folk songs travelled across the Line of Control despite the official ban on exchange of films after the 1965 war. The lifting, or plagiarism, has become so blatant that the people concerned have even stopped taking note.

In Bollywood this is called ''inspiration''. But the muses aren't too happy about the fact.


What began as ''inspiration'' from the ghazals and local music here, has over the years become an unabashed lifting of tunes and even words. According to the programme, almost all big names in the Indian music stand guilty. The songs they showed sound very familiar - ''choli ke peeche kya hai...'', ''kinna sona tujhe rab ne banaya...'', ''mera piya ghar aya...'', ''yaraa seeli seeli, biraha ki raat ka jalna,'' ''achcha sila diya tune mere pyar ka...'' the list goes on.

Dominant lobby

In the days when the subcontinent was not divided, though Bombay was the hub of the film industry, Lahore was the major cultural centre. In the early years after Independence, the Lahore lobby dominated the Bombay film scene. The land got divided, but the cultural needs of the people remained. And fulfilling these needs on either side created a rather warped exchange, at least in the field of popular music.

On this side, all performing arts were looked down upon as being un-Islamic, and the feeling intensified as the religious lobbies grew stronger. However, the age-old culture of the people is often difficult to stifle. The legendary singer Noorjehan, who left India at her peak, dominated the music scene for decades. Many others, however, went back to India to gain recognition. Classical music maestro Bade Ghulam Ali Khan was followed by almost several big names in the music industry here. Mehdi Hasan, Ghulam Ali, Abida Parveen, Mallika Pukhraj, Reshma, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and recently the pop group Junoon and singer Ali Haider - for all of them performing on the other side helped them make their mark here.

But this is the sane side of the paradigm that culture knows no boundaries. The Indian film industry has been inspired by the muse from the other side for half a century, but plagiarism has not been a one-track phenomenon. The tune in the 1952 film Baiju Bawra was copied by music director M. Ashraf in the 1987 ''Nache Nagin''. The hit song from the 1967 ''Humraaz'' - ''Hey, neele gagan ke tale...'' - was again copied by M. Ashraf for ''Nazneen'' in 1969.

Great demand

Indian films, always popular here, were allowed in until 1965. War broke out and the cultural exchange stopped. Today, the demand for Indian films and songs is so great here that pirated copies are available at local video shops on the day of release and sometimes even earlier.

When a cultural entity is split into two by politics, the people use subterfuge to maintain it. So you have this heady cocktail of traditional music and tunes not getting much patronage in their native place, being copied on the other side of the border, attaining heights of popularity and sneaking back in as pirated videos and VCDs, and grabbed by a populace starved of good entertainment.

Humming your favourite song? In all probability, that foot-tapping, chartbusting number is a rip-off from a lesser-known international track.

Though an age-old trend, plagiarism in music has taken on a whole new meaning — if it's popular, it can't be original. Cases in point: Pal, pal (Lage Raho Munnabhai), Kaisi Paheli Hai (Parineeta ), Dil Mein Baji Guitar (Apna Sapna Money Money), Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai (Woh Lamhe), Tu Hi Meri Shab Hai (Gangster) ...the list is endless.

So what was director Raju Hirani thinking when his film on Gandhigiri copied Cliff Richard's Theme For A Dream? "I wouldn't have taken three years to make a movie if I was looking for an easy solution like this. I value my originality and the truth is I heard Richard's song much later," says Hirani.

Rumour has it that Santanu Moitra, the music director for Lage Raho and Parineeta was very upset after the whole episode. What he was thinking while making the music or during its successful stint is anybody's guess.

The other new-composer-on-the-block who has the public humming almost everything he makes is Pritam Chakraborty. Sadly, all of Pritam's seemingly original scores have sources elsewhere. From Halka Halka Nasha (originally Breeze from Saintes Maries by Abrar ul Haq) to the recent Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai (originally Tak Bisakah by Indonesian group Peter Pan), he's guilty of 'sourcing' them all. "I really don't know what to say," Pritam says.

"There are too many reasons for what happened and whether I argue for or against my music, people will interpret it in their own way. I'd rather not react."

Is this a case of imitation being the best form of flattery? Karthik S, the creator of a website (ItwoFS) that lists copycat musical compositions, says, "These questions arise when people are aware that a particular track is inspired. Indian composers earnestly hope that people don't come to know about the originals because these are not credited/authorised inspirations, what one calls 'cover versions' in the west. These amount to blatant plagiarism."

Isn't 'adapting' a song actually giving it a new lease of life in another country? "Funnily, since our first point of contact is the Indian version, we tend to like it better than the original. As originals carry the flavour of the native country, our composers take a lot of care to adapt it to an Indian filmi sound," explains Karthik. To quote filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt's famous line, "For me, there's nothing like plagiarism, since there's nothing like originality. The human brain is a recycling bin. If you hide the source, you're a genius."

Intellectual Property Rights lawyer Pravin Anand tends to disagree. "There's no difference between an idea and its expression. If a concept is commercially-viable and somebody is lifting it to suit their purpose, they're liable. In fact, the beauty of the copyright law is that as soon as an original idea is penned, whether registered or not, it automatically comes under the protection of the copyright law."

Anand confirms that since India was part of the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, composers from countries around the world can take action against our desi copycats. Question is, are we prepared to face the music?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India/Bollywood_musi c_If_its_a_hit_its_a_rip-off/articleshow/690103.cms

Behind The BollyCat Concept.!!

If the term Bollywood brings movies like "Monsoon Wedding" to your mind, then you don't really know what Bollywood is. A Bollywood movie is not complete without a love story, some drama, dance, and atleast 5 songs. Doesn't matter if it's categorized as an action movie or a comedy, it has to have those elements to succeed in the Indian market. Now imagine Hollywood hits from every genre (action, suspense, comedy, drama and even sci-fi) being remade with an Indian twist every year and thrown at you at a pace 4 times as that of Hollywood itself. That's Bollywood. And those are BollyCats.

Huge by Indian standards, Bollywood is still in infancy internationally. An average Bollywood movie costs around $2 million to make and the industry's entire worldwide earnings are roughly $100 million dollars (outside of India, of course).

Accordingly, the industry is always under huge stress from within to churn out that "different kind of" movie which would then hopefully win audiences and become a "super-hit". So the directors, screen writers, music composers and even cinematographers do the only thing that they believe would prove successful... a remake of a Hollywood idea.

According to insiders, there are screen-writers who specialize in writing copycat scripts. They watch the latest theater releases on bootleg DVDs and are ready with their own Indianized version in no time.

They call it "inspiration", we call it plain old "stealing the idea". Since no royalties are paid to the original content creators 99.99% of the times, it's not legal either. But since Bollywood is so minuscule on the International scene in terms of earnings, Hollywood simply ignores it. And so the Indian writers and directors are given a freehand to keep doing what they've been doing for decades...

And that's why BollyCat has been created. We hope that the existence of this website would reduce the number of plagiarism cases in Bollywood. But until the day they stop plagiarizing everything, we'll be here, cataloging their acts of shame.

http://www.bollycat.com/behind-bollywoods-plagiarism

Hmmm loads of copycats even among my favourite composers of yesteryears as I see from the posts here. 😕

OPN's 'Aei dil hai mushkil jeena yahaan' is taken from this old English song called, "Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clementine". But very cleverly lifted I must say.

And then this one from an old Hindi movie (cannot recall the movie name, so cannot identify the director for sure) "Aajaa re aajaa, laage na mora jiya". Now that's a copy from this Italian song, "Volare"

But Moitra's constant lifting is getting a little tiring. In Parineeta he happily lifted songs from Rabindrasangeet, because he had an excuse for it. The context of the story, etc etc. So, "phule phule" was made the base of that refrain 'baag mein papiha bole pihoo, pihoo". But, I don't understand why he had to lift "Never on a Sunday" so blatantly for "Kaisi Paheli Zindagani." The refrain "Pee le ise, isme nasha, etc etc" is a direct lift from this popular Connie Francis number.

Moitra's lifting also happened for 'Pal pal' from Cliff Richard's "Theme for a dream" as we all know. I'm sure he is a talented director. Just wish he'd give a chance for his talent to show and not hide it behind all this 'lift-off'.

Oh remembered another one. There's this song picturized on Mala Sinha and Rajendra Kumar (I think). It goes, "Maine bulaya aur tum aaye". It's a complete lift from an "Arabian Nights" theme-music.