Can you recreate the Ranga Reel without infringing the copyrights?

If you have been on Instagram for even five minutes, it is difficult to escape the trending viral song from Aavesham movie called Karinkaliyalle. All thanks to Fahadh Fasil who started off the trend and now the whole of India is swaying with him to this addicting tune. The viral audio has been used by many including Mumbai police to creative awareness and Pat Cummins, the skipper for the IPL team Sunrisers Hyderabad. Although many have recreated this “Range reel”, lets see who actually owns the copyright and is the internet infringing any rights while recreating it.

It is no doubt that the “Ranga reel” trend was started by Fahadh Fasil but, he does not own the Copyright for his dance, song, or anything that has to do with the song. Usually, the ownership of Copyright for a movie is with the movie producers or the production house and so is the case with this Instagram trend. The Copyright for the original clip that was clipped from the movie is with the producers but, when the people of the internet recreate, the Copyright is with whoever recreated it. Under the Copyright Act, section52 talks about “Fair use”. Relating that concept to the “Doctrine Sweat of the Brow”, when someone recreates the viral reel they are putting their efforts into the reel even if its them simply mirroring Fasil’s moves to the audio. According to this doctrine, the level of creativity does not hold much value, it gives importance to the level of hard work and time spent making it. With everyone putting their own twist to the trend, we don’t think lack of level of creativity would be an issue. However, if someone steals your video and reposts the same without your permission, that would be infringement.

Now that we are on our way to recreate this reel ourselves, catch y’all in the next article!