Kantara song a blatant infringement of copyright, says Thaikkudam Bridge

Over the last decade, Thaikkudam Bridge has gained enormous popularity not just in Kerala but also in other parts of the country. In a conversation, Thaikkudam Bridge band manager Sujith Unnithan told South First that many listeners and well-wishers alerted them about the copyrights issue soon after the release of Kantara, a surprise commercial and critical success.

A total rip-off: Thaikkudam Bridge

“Numerous people have been telling us this from the time the movie was released. Initially, we didn’t notice it, as it is a Kannada movie. But when people started sending us the YouTube link, we understood that it is a complete rip-off of our song,” said Unnithan.

Surprisingly, Kantara music director B Ajaneesh Loknath, when asked by a Kannada TV channel regarding the “inspiration” from Thaikkudam Bridge’s Navarasam, attributed the similarities between the songs to the raga.

“Our friends from the music community thought we gave the rights of Navarasam to the producers of Kantara. But the song is a total rip-off, including the guitar riffs, drum patterns and everything. You can understand it if you listen to both songs. Musicians will definitely understand and this can even be identified by the general public,” Unnithan said.

The band manager also revealed that the makers of Kantara reached out to the band a couple of days ago, saying that they are willing to compensate. “But it was too little and too late.”

“We felt really bad about their actions. Now that we posted this, we are getting good responses. In the next few days, if they (Kantara makers) do not reach out to us again, we may take the legal route,” Unnithan added.

Let the court differentiate between inspiration and plagiarism

Thaikkudam Bridge’s work has appeared in various movies and web series in the past, including the recent web series Family Man starring Manoj Bajpayee. However, they all took prior content rights from the creators.

“In this case, we were not aware; we were not made aware; not requested for using the song and they didn’t even give us credit for using the song,” Unnithan pointed out.

People can say that the work is inspired, but plagiarism and inspiration are two different things. And this can be determined by the court, he opined.

“We have a copyright law to clearly differentiate these terms. We want to clarify that it is not an inspiration, but a major copyright violation.”

The band, through its Facebook account on Monday, requested the support of their listeners and artists to spread the word and raise their voices about the issue.