Bollywood

02007-10-20 | Movies, Music | 6 comments

Synian Colors » Blog Archive » When it comes to music, it’s 30 going on 300
Aa Paas Aa (from Ankahee): copied from Ottmar Liebert’s “Starry Night”

Found the above statement and a search discovered a YouTube version of the song: Aa Paas Aa – Ankahee

This website chronicles plagiarism in Indian Film Music.

I think this one is much more blatant – I think they sampled straight from “Nouveau Flamenco” – and here is how I found that one.

This reminds me of recording in Milan, Italy, with Leda a few years ago. For lunch we went to a small restaurant, owned by a man from the south of Italy. Leda wanted to introduce me but the man had obviously never heard of me. So Leda hummed the melody from “2 the Night” and the guy started smiling and nodding.

PS: I wonder whether it would be different had I always used a Creative Commons license. I mean it does not do me any good if fans of Bollywood music hear some of my melodies or samples taken from my music if they don’t know they are mine. There is no connection to my name. If the music had been released with a CC license and if the soundtrack composers had accordingly credited me – I would have a fan-base in India that I could sell my own albums to. I realize that is a BIG IF, because they might not want to let anybody know they lifted a melody or sample from somebody, but maybe… As it is copyright could have prevented the Indian musicians from crediting me – because Higher Octave/EMI or Sony Music might have sued them.

The Italian story is entirely different. “2 the Night” was used in the soundtrack for the 1996 Italian movie Il Ciclone – see YouTube vid – fully credited and licensed, and as a result of the success of the movie an Italian band recorded a cover, which was very very popular in Italy in 1997. I received the writing share of the record sales and radio play of that cover through BMI.

6 Comments

  1. Diran

    Hi, Do they have a right to use your song?

    Reply
  2. Carol

    I don’t believe that was an accident : ) That’s pretty unethical and should be illegal if it isn’t.
    2 the Night. No wonder he recognized it. what was the hit movie in Italy that used it as their sound track?

    Reply
  3. eric

    quite the production!

    …errr….re-production.

    Reply
  4. Mixalis

    The guitar piece was the best part of the video. The rest of it was just noise. It is a shame they plagerized your music Ottmar. It just goes to show you that there are only a hand full artists in the world that have the talent to create something on their own.

    Peace

    Reply
  5. Pratiroop

    Mr Leibert
    You can still sue the Indian music composers. Believe me you are losing millions of dollars by letting these copycats use your tunes, without paying you a royalty.

    PS: I am not sure whether or not you know, that the producers of the American movie Hitch have sued an Indian production company for lifting their story in an Indian movie ‘Partner’. Indian movie industry is full of big cheats and should e taught a lesson.

    Reply
  6. @noop

    Hi Mr.Liebert

    I agree to what Pratiroop says. U shouldn’t let this guy Pritam Chakravarthy get away with his unethical composing. Most of these Indian movie music makers are a bunch of lazy bums who hardly use their brain to create original music but blatantly lifts tunes, samples from renowned as well as unknown musicians work across the globe without paying the royalty to original composer.
    If you’ve come across http://www.itwofs.com, you would’ve known the scene much better by now :)

    I strongly believe if one musician like you take action against plagiarism, will be an eye-opener for Bollywood.

    Reply

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