Plagiaristic Asses!

Plagiarism has become the bread n butter of many a music director today. In the name of 'inspiration' and 'influence' and many more adjectives tunes and beats are blatantly flicked without even the consent of the original composer.

Such copies have been happening in our music industry right since the days of Bappi Lahiri(reknown for his inspiration from Modern Talking), Rajesh Roshan(loved Rednex a lot!), Viju Shah(an ardent Deep Forest fan) and Anu Malik(Influenced by Los del Rio to the Theme song of Good Bad and Ugly) to name a few.

Pritam Chakraborty.. the new age musical guru is the eptitome of such plagiarisms. The number of songs directly ripped of by him is quite a handsome number and will put even the most infamous so called music directors to shame. I found a really good website where most of his inspirational acts have been categorized and having heard through most of the songs here is a list which are definite copies!
In fact i later realised there is a comprehensive list in wiki itself under Pritam!!

Here is a list of a few songs that sounded like perfect copies!

Movie--------Song---------------Copied From

Dhoom--------ShikDum------------Turkish singer Tarkan's 'Sikidim'

Chocloate----Halka Halka sa-----Jesse Cook's 'Breeze from Saintes Maries'

Chocloate----Bheega Bheega------December by Abrar ul Haq

Chocloate----Zehreeli Raatein----Jal's 'Aadat'

Garam Masala-Chori Chori---------Dr Zeus/ Balwinder Safri's 'Hai rabba'

Gangster-----Ya Ali--------------Guitara's song, 'Ya Ghali'

Gangster-----Bheegi Bheegi-------Prithibi by Bong Band Mohiner Ghoraguli

Gangster-----Tu hi Meri Shab Hai--Sacral Nirvana by Oliver Shanti n Friends

Gangster-----Lamha Lamha----------Waris Baig's 'Kal shab dekha maine'

Woh Lamhe----Kya Mujhe Pyaar Hai--Indonesian Band PeterPan's 'Tak Bisakah'

Woh Lamhe----Tu Jo Nahin Hai------S.B. John sung the same song in an old Pakistani film 'Sawera'

Woh Lamhe----Chal Chale-----------'A World of our own' by The Seekers

Bhagam Bhag--Signal---Trinidadian Soca hit, 'Signal for Lara' by Superblue

Raqueeb------Jaane kaise----------Amr Diab's 2003 track, 'Allem albi'

*Kaise Kahein-Aarzoo Hai-----------Aaj Abar by Bong Band Chandrabindoo

*to be noted he used to be a guitarist in the band Chandrabindoo before going solo as a music director in Bollywood.

There are more but few have been cleverly copied by him so that the resemblance with the original is not that evident to the amateur ear. Of course this only lists those tracks that have not been credited to the original artist by him. Recently after recieving lots of flak from various corners of the music industry he has recently given credit to the original music composers in movies like Aawarapaan.

However my point is if music from pakistan and middle east and God knows where all have to be COPIED why cant the producers simply approach them directly for providing music for the movies. I believe this act should be considered to be a crime and music directors copying music ought to be dragged to court and fined heavily for violation of music copyright..something on the lines that Sony Pictures Entertainment are doing by suing Eros Entertainment and K Sera Sera for copying the script of 'Hitch' in the movie 'Partner'. Hopefully this lawsuit will pave the way for more such lawsuits and hopefully a strict non-ambigous international law about plagiarisms.