Entertainment and fashion industry has immense potential to catapult a person from obscurity to a celebrity overnight often with very huge commercial stakes. Unfortunately, the yearning for success is so great that it can subject some people to pursue ignominious paths to success. The ignominious paths to success can vary from plagiarism to twisting the media to their advantage to gain cheap publicity.
The fashion trends have changed so as music, literature and movie contents. No wonder the internet revolution, technological developments, unrestrained cross border movement and exposure to overseas entertainment avenues and fashion products, has relegated purely ethnic Indian arts and products to back seat and buoyed some fusion trends in every “artistic” field. Unfortunately, innovative ideas required for new music, literary writings, movies and products has been attenuating due to which artists, either consciously or unconsciously are progressively influenced and inspired by each other’s works and are resorting to tweaking and mixing to generate new products. In fact, various new trends form International and domestic fashion shows and entertainment subjects from umpteen movie and music festivals across the world have become a source of inspiration for many artists in their new works, which is construed as plagiarism by a few genuine artistes. Incidentally, an indistinct line separates the zones of inspiration and plagiarism. Plagiarism in performing arts, literature and fashion industry, most times, is willful adaptation and at times be pure coincidence.
Based on numerous case studies by experts and historical legal battles, it is highly complex to impose Intellectual Property Protection to these businesses since the diverse technical perspectives involved with these products cannot be legally corroborated. Hence, for some original artists, writers, producers and designers, plagiarism is something they cannot fight, and consider it to be a tribute to their intellectual skills by their peers.
Despite of the fact that plagiarism battles are hard to be won, some of the artists or agencies seem to be raking up these issues to gain some cheap publicity, for which print and visual media is virtually aiding in their enthusiasm to create some sensationalism and increase their TRP ratings. Plagiarism allegations in India are getting weird as they come in just before a movie’s release or during the premier of a TV show. Such surreal allegations are becoming habitual and people are perplexed with the “free publicity beneficiary” (Is it the accused or accuse?) behind such media blitzkrieg. Here is a list of latest plagiarism allegations which either decayed naturally or were withdrawn later by the “Accusee”.
a. Music plagiarism was alleged by reputed folk singer for a song in super hit Telugu film “Magadheera”. It is still a million dollar question as to how the media sensationalism died down instantly after the film became a super hit.
b. Music plagiarism was alleged by a budding singer & composer against the music director of TV show “Satyameva Jayathe” just ahead of its premier show with regards to its title song.
c. Iranian band Barobax sent a legal notice to "Agent Vinod" music composer Pritam, during the pre-release of the film alleging plagiarism. However, the film was a disaster at the box-office. Subequently, Iranian band Barobax apologized to Pritam.
d. Mumbai based writer has filed a case of plagiarism against the filmmakers and writer of film 'Jannat 2' during the film’s release alleging that they stole his story in which characters, plot and the dialogues were very similar to his own script. It is yet to be seen who the beneficiary is!
The mute question in this era of “PAID NEWS” is: Is such a media Blitzkrieg necessary on such menial and legally fragile issues?