A thin line between inspiration & plagiarism

Bollywood is big business and ofcourse the stars make a lot from a film, whether it is a hit or a flop - it really doesn't touch their bank accounts at all. But the hallmark of a well-made movie is that people are now looking for the entire package to be put attractively. So, stars should look good, great foreign locales shot well and good music score all make up the ingredients of a hit movie. Many times in this line-up, a storyline is missing but that's another issue.

Most old Hindi films had all of these but foreign locales were kept to the minimum because budgets didn't allow for that kind of luxury. So, Kashmir passed for any foreign country where snow fell. What an irony then, that in the Aamir Khan-Kajol starrer 'Fanaa', the cast were flown to Poland, which was then shown as Kashmir! But this kind of inspirational thinking has kept the Bollywood creative factory going strong.

When inspiration is sought from other sources without giving due credit to them, then that's where trouble begins. Recently a movie was released called 'Bheja Fry' that is a verbatim remake of a French film 'The Dinner Game' and again no credit was given to the original. This seems to happen a lot in Bollywood where scripts and even song tunes are lifted with free abandon.

Music director, Anu Malik has earlier battled this label of being a tune lifter and lately others have also joined his club. Pritam Chakraborty has been accused of lifting Harry Belafonte's 'The Woman is Smarter' for the movie 'Hattrick'. Chakravarty refutes this allegation and told CNBC-TV18, "Calypso songs are done in the same formula. It's like rock and roll, which has a certain formula to it. Only one line that drops into the chorus is similar. I can't go out of the Calypso format. In fact, there are many Calypso songs which sound the same."

So, does this make it plagiarism? Intellectual Property Rights lawyer, Praveen Anand defines it like this - the test of the original is, if it is clearly recognisable, when you hear the copy...then it's plagiarism. 

Head, UTV, Ronnie Screwvala says, "We are an evolving industry and if anything is inspired or copied, it's equally bad, unless you have given due credit to the composer. The industry needs to move toward this and is slightly moving to this. Ofcourse, as long as the royalty is paid, this issue doesn't arise." He adds, "A lot of western movies make remakes of what they made 40 years back."

Malik actually says that in the past, he has lifted a few bars of foreign songs because he needed the projects but credit was given where due and that a lot of the time, certain, directors, actors and producers put the pressure to use a particular song.

Webmaster, http://www.itwoFS.com , Karthik S says that the blame squarely lies with producers and directors because they own the copyright to the songs but Praveen Anand says, that everyone in the chain of command is responsible. He explains, "The blames lies with all the people in the chain - from the people who porduced the faulty music to the people who packaged and displayed it. However, the correct course for them to take is to licence the music and there have been instances in the Hindi movie industry, where music has been licensed. It's cheaply available to license."

But music composers can borrow music whose copyright has lapsed or doesn't have any, like folk music in India. Anand says that borrowing such material has now become  "what is legally right is morally correct now."

Chakaraborty also says that "wherever possible, I have admitted it. Your credit doesn't go because you working as hard on a song you are taking from somewhere and which you are remaking into your version. Making a melody is a little percentage of making a song."

"And if we are talking about moral issues, then why are composers not given the dues they should get. We work on a song and we get a little amount of money so we have to produce more and more songs." Well he does have point here - and this begs this question - when the money isn't spread out equally, then should the blame only be put on the composer?