B'wood music: Original or copied?

Bangalore: The chart-busting song Ya Ali from the film Gangster is known to have been composed by Pritam.

It however, is a song by the Guitara band. The song is known Ya Ghali. And the only thing that seems to be missing is the courtesy tag.

There are innumerable such instances of plagiarism, especially in booming Bollywood, and almost everyone is getting a little too inspired.

Many chartbusters by some of the biggest music composers are actually not their own creations. And one man in Bangalore seems to be keeping a tab on it all.

“In the past 50 years of Hindi film industry every single film composer has done this including R D Burman and his father S D Burman, Shankar Jaikishen and Laxmikant Pyarelal, almost everybody,” says Karthik of itwofs.com.

Thirty-year-old Karthik from Bangalore is a music piracy vigilante of sorts. His website is bringing to light numerous instances when our music directors have shot to fame by ripping off tracks from over-seas.

“We are not allowed to copy in the exams. The same logic is followed is here. However, the difference is that there are rules to be followed in the exams, but nobody bothers about that here,” says Karthik.

If you take a close look at the website itwofs.com- Inspiration in Indian Film Songs, you can see the veil being lifted off almost all Indian music directors. You can not only listen to the copied track but also the original one on the site.

And Karthik is not alone in this initiative. People from across the globe help provide the content for the web site.

The secret of creativity is to know how to hide your sources, but with people like Karthik on the prowl, Indian music directors now need to think twice before they get inspired to inspire us.

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