Did Hip Hop Tamizha Copy the Kerala Song?

Natpe Thunai, a tamil sports film received lots of good reviews for the movie. The songs were criticised for lifting up may contents from others. Even the whole tracklist was trolled by Standup Comedians. This article will focus on whether lifting a small portion from other works in order to make a song is infringement or not.

The track Kerala song from this movie lifted thre

e main contents from other original works.

Firstly, is the lyrics, it goes like "Hey enga state-u, Kerala aano, Enga CM Vijayan aano, Enga dance-u kathakkali aano", this is similar to a famous dialogue of late comedian Vivek. Nextly, in the beginning part, there will be a portion of Vidya Vox's song "Pallivaalu Bhadravattakam' and the famous beat drop is almost completely ripped from.

"Back to You" -BLitz-More Beats.

1. Vivek Dialogue as Lyrics

2. Vidya Vox's voice being used in the Beginning

3. Beat Drop almost taken from Blitz-More Beats 

Let’s test whether these three are an infringement or not.

1. Lyrics

A small portion of dialogue has been taken, the lyrics are also little changed as per the tune, but when audience listen to it their mind will definitely think about the dialogue only. Furthermore, the dialogue has been expressed differently for the song and it can be considered as original content taken for a transformative purpose. Hence, it is not infringement

2.Vidya Vox's voice being used

Kollywood Music Industry is at in evolving state. Young composers experiment a lot for the audience to enjoy. A small portion from an original work taken and used it for another work can be an infringement but if a request to use is seeked and accepted by the relevant copyright owner, then it would escape from infringement. This usage of small portion or an element of another musical works is called as Music Sampling.

Thus, Vidya Vox's song with her voice in it has been sampled in the beginning. Thus, escapes from infringement.

3. Beat Drop that is taken from Blitz-More Beats

Almost entire beat drop which starts from 1:33 and ends at 1:40 is taken from "back to you - Blitz More Beats". You can listen to it and the beat drop starts at 0:40.

Almost an entire rip off has been made. A lay man while listening to it will definitely think, its a complete copy from Blitz-More beats. The song could have escaped from infringement in two ways. Firstly, it could be sampling as mentioned earlier. Secondly, there are beat producers who make beats and sell it for other artists to use it. Hiphop Tamizha team could have bought license to use this particular beat. Thus, escapes from infringement .

Music composers while composing songs by combining other original works demand an intellectual thinking.

Share your views on whether these activities by artists should be protected and encouraged or not.