Creative Copy Rights

I have been coming across a this Hindi(?) pop song playing almost everywhere last week - malls, ringtones, lifts, you name the place. Although Hindi music is not my cup of tea, this song really caught my (ear's) attention. It had a nice bass , beat and melancholic tone to it and even though I couldn't follow the lyrics, I could make out some words like "yaar", "qurban", "ishq" from the song. Absolutely clueless, with this limited piece of knowledge , I put Google to the test of times, but to no avail. Search engines have to be given something to search for , some keywords like artist, film name or song title....bummer!

With some help from a music shanty in nearby market, I deciphered the song title as "Ya Ali" after trying out "Yaara dil", "Yaara ve", "Mera dil" (all of which are also supposedly in the currency) and that was enough for me to google it. My research findings were quite appalling:

1. This song was from a Bollywood movie Gangster(2006) which is apparently a hit movie. The song is also apparently a hit song

2.The song "Ya Ali" has been sung by Zubeein, a Bangladeshi debutante to bollywood and written by some unknown lyricists.

3. The music is copied entirely from the original arabic song " Ya Ghali" by Guitara, who by the way, has fabulously rendered the piece with her lilting and contemporary voice.

4. This is not the first "copied" song making it big in the Bollywood chartbusters. Apparently songs of the arabic king of pop Amr Diab have been regular targets in most of Mahesh Bhatt's movies ( sample the hit song "Kaho na kaho" from Murder(2005) ripped off straight from Amr diab's "Tamaly Maa'k")

5. Blogs abound with disgust over the amount of plagiarism in Bollywood, especially from arabic /spanish music. Most of the bloggers only wished that atleast due recognition in the form of "credit" was given to the original artist. Nevertheless, there was unanimity on the fact that Indians did a great job in copying songs and blending the same with excellent hindi lyrics! You can't simply pass off arabic imports in the indipop scene without good beat or lyrics.

Looks like the usual haven for Indian plagiarists - Western & Disco Music is now nome more in demand. Arabic, Spanish, Sufi music with techno blend seem to be ruling the roosts for now. Not far from now Shakira & Amr Diab could be doing a romanic dance number for the upcoming " Copy Cats"!!!!