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May.04.2008 @ I've been meaning to write about this lift for ages, but the other lifts in the pipeline took precedence over it, so far. Prabhu Rajagopal's mail about this lift today reminded me that this is still pending - so here goes! Tamil composer Veda was a pioneer of sorts. He was one of the earliest composers in the South who lifted blatantly, though the choice of his originals are pretty classy. One of his most famous lifts is the song, 'Palinginaal oru maaligai' from the 1966 Jaishankar starrer Vallavan oruvan. The song is a unabashed lift of the jazz standard, Frenesi. Frenesi was first composed by Alberto Dominguez and was later adapted as a jazz standard. It has been performed and recorded by many famous artists including Frank Sinatra and Perez Prado (the version below!). Listen to Palinginaal | Frenesi April.29.2008 Is Ram Sampath a lifter too? No, he's not! When one of ItwoFS readers, Debashish wrote to me asking this question, he had solid proof. Ram's Nike ad has a piece of music that sounds very similar to Goan singer Lorna's 'Bebdo'. Debashish of course gave the benefit of doubt to Ram and had asked me to find out if the music rights were purchased legitimately for the reuse! And it seems he did. Thanks to Priyanka Dasgupta of Calcutta Times for getting this info! As for the Nike ad's version, it is sung by Mumbai based Ella Castellino and the lyrics were written afresh by Agnello Oswin Das, Senior VP, J Walter Thompson. Thanks to Sonia Faleiro's March 1, 2007 post for this info - there's more in that too, check her blog! Listen to Nike ad jingle | Bebdo Watch the Nike ad here! April.27.2008 @ Back to Pritam territory. Besides the fact that the title, plot and every actor in the 2006 Hindi film, Fight Club makes anyone cringe (not to forget that uber-cool tag, 'Members Only'!), here's one more thing to add to the cringe-worthy items - the title song. The song which starts with 'Joshilay jawan ho' is lifted directly off Egyptian singer Ihab (Ehab) Tawfik's 'Allah alek ya siedi' from his 2002 album, Homa Kelmeten! Terrible stuff, as usual! Thanks to Rajib Garu for the info! Listen to Joshilay jawan | Allah alek ya siedi April.20.2008 @ Here's another proof of the Roshan's dishonorable intentions. Despite my constant hammering of Sandeep Chowta, he at least has a precedence of crediting his sources in the tape/ CD. Karan Johar and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy did that to Roy Orbison in Kal Ho Na Ho. So, what would a composer and a producer do if they indeed have the legal rights (perceived, in this case, if Sony Ericsson goofed)? The idea is not just to pay off the source - it is to let people know boldly that your work is a derivative and let them compare notes with the original and appreciate the finer nuances you've so painstakingly put in to differentiate your work. So, did any one find a credit note to the Sony Ericsson Thump track in the CD of Krazzy 4? Nope! Can we then safely assume that the end objective of the Roshans was to pass of someone else's tune as Rajesh Roshan's own? That is precisely the problem here. Not, when Ram Sampat filed the suit. Not, Rakesh Roshan was 'forced to cough up 2 crores for want of time'. Those are COMPLETELY besides the point and only push the Roshans further into ignominy. @ Now that we're in Rajesh Roshan territory over the past 2 weeks, lets dwell on the man further. His Koyla (1997) track, Tanhai tanhai already contains generous snatches of his favorite composer Vangelis' Conquest of Paradise all across the interludes and humming. But the main tune also seems to be inspired - at least right now, from Rajesh Roshan's own 'Frenny O Frenny' from the 1977 film, Khatta Meetha. Given the man's dubious record, is there a super original? Does someone here know? Let me know if you do - as always, innocent until proven guilty even if its a repeat offender like Rajesh Roshan! Thanks to Babu Ransetty for pointing this out! Listen to Tanhai tanhai | Frenny O Frenny Listen to Tanhai interlude | Conquest of Paradise @ Lastly, Blogeswari mailed me that she saw (on CNBC Story Board) ad film maker Prasoon Pandey defend the plagiarism of the DLF IPL Karmayudh ad campaign lifted off a 5 year old US TV promo! The YouTube video that exposes this lift also quotes Prasoon Pandey, possibly on mail. Prasoon says, "I am the one who directed the IPL Karamayudh Commercial and my name is Prasoon Pandey. The use of the splash in the baseball commercial, I must confess is uncomfortably close to the one in the IPL Ad. When we cut the actual footage together and gave it to my animators to paint on top, they having painted on top also put a splash on a shot and showed it to me. I loved it and I am the one who asked them to go ahead with it. But I hadn't even seen this baseball commercial till you put it on You tube, and have just confirmed with my animator E. Suresh of Famous Studios, neither had he. At the same point of time, the splash can neither be anybody's property nor is it the idea of the IPL commercial. IPL'S idea is in the Veer Ras audio track. The splash is only a visual punctuation in the larger imagery". What do you think? Watch the YouTube of DLF IPL Karmayudh tune over the US Baseball promo April.15.2008 @ Its quite funny to see a grown up man cry on the newspapers, right through his nose. Rakesh Roshan's passionate plea to his brethren is simply hilarious. He may have actually had the intention of buying the rights of a musical piece for the VETY FIRST TIME in his life and he gets sued for that - this is what I call poetic justice. He has literally paid for his past sins in one stroke...imagine the number of scripts he has lifted (including The Dream Team for Krazzy 4!!) or the number of tunes he got his composer brother to lift. Besides the money he has lost and a minor loss of so-called reputation, he has learnt one valuable thing here...something we have all learnt when we were kids - 'as you sow, so you reap'. Mahesh 'there's nothing original in this world' Bhatt...you're next! And, most importantly, please do not form your opinions about Ram Sampat based on Roshan's mudslinging. Or even his above-average work in Khakee or his incredible work in Ram Madhvani's 'Lets Talk'. Ram Sampat, along with Siddharth Achrekar were the brains behind Colourblind - one of India's first ever rock bands, besides Indus Creed. Their only album is, in my opinion, one of the best rock albums this country has produced. This album is not available in stores any more but Siddharth has made the album free for download, here! Support Ram by listening to his stuff - he may be ostracized from Bollywood shortly thanks to the Roshans' combined might. April.13.2008 @ Thanks to Justice Karnik, we now have the very first legal reference to music plagiarism in the country. I really admire the speed with which he delivered the judgment, using a combination of three sane, logical arguments - an expert's opinion (who is Shiv Mathur, but?), Roshans' indirect admission and the best - his own untrained ear. That's the way to go, dear Sir - Splendid job! As for Thievery Corporation (The Roshans), it is mega dumb to complain about the timing of the law suit. Roshan ji - it really doesn't matter when the case was filed. If Ram had timed it to put you in a spot, I say, that's a brilliant strategy and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. He's the wronged party and you are the thief, for heavens' sake! I'm happy that Ram did not file this earlier, else the Roshans' combined clout in the industry would have threw Ram and his singer wife, Sona out of the country/ industry. Now, would the makers of The Dream Team sue the shit out of the Roshans please? Not to mention the 40 odd original artists mentioned in this page - for all the crap they speak with zilch conscience, they deserve to be sued to hell! April.08.2008 @ Ok, I'm touched! After that post earlier today where I reported a DNA news piece on Ram Sampat suing the Roshans, there was a flood of mails asking me my opinion, as the person running ItwoFS! So, here goes! First, the reason why I haven't added this even after 5 ItwoFS regulars mailing me. We are so used to lifts/ inspirations in ad jingles from rhythm loops that I was waiting to find out if the Sony Thump piece is on the same lines - that is, to find out if Ram had used an existing loop to create his jingle - I do not want to be caught alleging plagiarism when the source itself may be inspired. But, now that Ram has sued the Roshans, I assume the Thump is his own creation. Given that, my personal opinion is that Rajesh Roshan is guilty. The main tune that goes, 'Break free gotta get some chutti, to do zanjeeron ko...' and its subsequent line in a progressive scale can be found clearly in the background of the Thump jingle. The beats/ rhythm is identical too. Based on this, I'd say that there's a reasonable amount of evidence here that points to the fact that the seed for the Krazzy 4 song germinated from the Sony Ericsson Thump commercial's jingle. This is a clear case of plagiarism and is appalling in two respects - one, the guts with which the Roshans have openly lifted this and have been going about promoting this in the hope that no one will care. And two, its a shame that they have lifted from their own team, a fellow, contemporary composer from Bollywood. Ram Sampat deserves the kind of money he's asking for, and more. I hope something happens to this law suit and we have at least one Indian, legal precedence for music plagiarism! Listen to Break Free | Sony Ericsson Thump Breaking news: Composer Ram Sampath takes the Roshans to court over plagiarism! DNA reports, "The trouble began in March when Sampath heard the title track of Krazzy4 being played on a music channel. His lawyer Virendra Tulzapurkar said that his client bought a CD of the album and was shocked to find that the title track, a song titled ‘Break Free’ and their remix versions were “directly lifted” from his music for ‘Thump’ without taking his permission or giving him any credit. In fact, credit for the music has been given to music composer Rajesh Roshan" - More here! In fact, as many as 5 ItwoFS regulars (Jamshid Mahmood, Yash Sagar, S. Sethuraj, Samhan and Manu Vyas) have been crying hoarse about this alleged lift ever since the Krazzy 4 soundtrack was out. What do you think? Does Ram have a case here? Watch the Sony Ericsson 'Thump' ad here! April.06.2008 @ This week's update is a result of my recent review of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan's new album, Charkha. The music in the album is supposedly co-produced by Rohail Hyatt and Faisal Rafi. So, I'm not sure who's wise idea it was to remix Alanis Morissette's unreleased single, 'Uninvited' (1998) that was part of the 'City of Angels' OST as 'Na janay kahan'! The Pakistani version uses the first 3/4 lines from Alanis' original as-is and goes another way shortly afterwards - but the similarity is unmistakable! Thanks to Sanjay Jaswani for mailing me the info! Listen to Na janay kahan | Uninvited @ Thanks to Vishal Das, Vinay Chauhan, Yerramalli Chittaranjan and S. Sethuraj for pointing out that Robbie Williams' 'Millennium' borrows heavily from Nancy Sinatra's 'You only live twice', the title track of the James Bond film of the same name! More on Alanis' Uninvited! March.29.2008 @ Tons of mails about Love Story 2050's music being handled by Anu Malik and not Himesh. Possibly! The folks at IndiaFM (aka Bollywood Hungama, or the other way around) need to update their site too! @ This week's update is no inspiration - its a bloody direct and ruthless lift. The fact that it is by an upcoming, talented and young composer really hurts since there's really no need at his stage in career to resort to such blatant plagiarism. The song is 'Sooriyane' from the latest Tamil film, 'Vellithirai', with music by A R Rahman's nephew, G V Prakash Kumar. The song is lifted note-to-note from Australian country singer, Keith Urban's 2002 super hit single, 'Somobody like you' - its a drop-off-your-seat variety lift. Plain shameful. Credit goes to Deepak Devaran who dug this and mailed me. Thanks pal! Listen to Sooriyane | Somebody like you More on Keith Urban March.27.2008 @ Happened to stumble upon the mighty impressive promo of Harman Baweja's debut, 'Love Story 2050'. Take a look, here! As someone has commented below, it does look like a desi version of Chris Columbus' Robin Williams starrer, Bicentennial Man (1999). I may be wrong, though. But the reason why I'm posting this here is the piece of music that plays towards the very end of the promo - when we are finally shown Harman's face. The music bears an uncanny resemblance to the prominent piece of music in Robbie Williams' 'Millennium'! The film has music by Himesh Reshammiya and background score by Amar Mohile. Hope there's no lift in an actual song in the film! @ ItwoFS makes it to The Kamla Bhatt Show! March.22.2008 @ Aah...this is refreshing! Pritam has actually come up with an inspiration that sounds more like he's imbibed the feel of the original and crafted something genuinely derivative! I'm referring to Jannat's lovely, 'Door na ja'! Rana Mazumder's amazing vocals carry this track superbly, but the opening, sedate portion of the song seems to have been modeled along Damien Rice's cult hit, 'The Blower's Daughter'. Even if the 'Tera chehra' part is perhaps intentionally different from the source's 'And so it is...', the Hindi track's 'Door na ja' is a dead giveaway - just compare it with the original's 'Can't take my eyes off you' and the corresponding background arrangements. But Pritam takes his version to another level shortly after that - pretty neat job! Thanks to Ashish Sharma for the info - this is a fantastic find! Listen to Door na ja | The Blower's Daughter More on Damien Rice! March.21.2008 Abbas Mastan's plagiarism spree continues in Race (for the record, the duo's last, Naqaab was lifted off the Gael García Bernal starrer, 'Dot the I'). Race is actually lifted off a 1998 Roland Jaffe film titled 'Goodbye Lover'. Except the lead actors' profession, the plot and twists seem to have been lifted quite literally! Way to go, folks! March.18.2008 @ ItwoFS makes it to National Public Radio in the US - in a program titled 'Marketplace'! The transcript and mp3 are available here! Permanent posts! @ I've been trying to trace the originals of the following songs - any info that you think would help, please do mail me. - Chalte Chalte - Chalte Chalte [Bappi Lahiri] - Supposed to be lifted off a German folk song. - Anari - Woh chand khila [Shankar Jaikishen] - A very popular western classical piece, has also been used as a background piece by A R Rahman in the movie 'May Madham'. @ Also refer to this page, which says, "He (Raj Kapoor) never hesitated to adapt tunes (such as 'Is libe dis, I love you' and 'Dost dost na raha', both in 'Sangam') which had appealed to him". So what are the sources of these tracks? If you know, lemme know! @ I'm looking for an audio clip (any format, size) of the following tracks... [1] Hemant Kumar's 'Jab tak yeh raat hai baki' from the movie 'Bees Saal Pehle'. [2] The All India Radio FM signature tune, that goes 'A.I.R FM Rainbow...all the time...' @ This is more of a personal search than about a lift...it could be a possible lift too, btw! The song from the Maniratnam production, 'Five Star'...titled 'Rayile rayile' has a generous sprinkling of some world music stuff. For some reason Azerbaijani music pops in my mind, though its only a wild guess. Could anybody recognize the style/ country of this music? It can be heard in the one of the sites below! Raaga | Smashhits | Musicindiaonline (5th song) Please do mail me in case you have these tracks or know more about these! Enter your search terms Web itwofs Submit search form Hindi Anu Malik Anand Milind Anand Raaj Anand Bappi Lahiri Jatin Lalit Kalyanji Anandji Laxmikant Pyarelal Nadeem Shravan OP Nayyar Pritam Chakravarty Rajesh Roshan RD Burman Salil Chaudhry SD Burman Sandeep Chowta Sanjeev Darshan Shankar Jaikishen Hindi - others Tamil A R Rahman Deva Ilayaraja Karthikraja Yuvan S. Raja Tamil - others Assorted Coincidences Indipop Advt. jingle lifts Telugu Trivia

Disclaimer and help on audio files: The site demonstrates similarities in music, usually compared between an Indian composition with that of a composition from another part of the world or within India. The final interpretation on what constitutes a similarity is entirely my assumption. The similarity thus deduced is not based on a purely scientific basis like note-to-note comparison nor am I musically knowledgeable enough to do that. The attempt here is to merely showcase similarities that are obvious to a normal person with no/ limited musical sense, in other words, the lowest common denominator basis for understanding similarities. This is also the reason why I use the terms 'lift', 'copied' or 'plagiarized' and not 'infringed' since this site is not ideally conceived as a legal proof for music plagiarism. The Audio files included here are for demonstration purposes only and are merely edited clippings, mostly lasting not more than 30 seconds. The quality in which they are edited is also ensured to be minimal so that they may not replace actual, full fledged digital versions. The clips are not meant to infringe any copyright whatsoever. Please download and install the free Real Player to listen to these song files.

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