A Bollywood filmmaker has agreed to pay an ad jingle composer 20 million rupees (about £250,000) after the latter claimed the former had ripped off music he wrote for a Sony Ericcson advert in his latest movie.
Jingle composer Ram Sampath claimed that two songs from Bollywood filmmaker Rakesh Roshan's new movie 'Krazzy 4', which was released last week, stole from his Ericcson ad music. And an Indian court agreed with him, claiming that Rakesh and his brother Rajesh Roshan, who composed the 'Krazy 4' soundtrack, were "prima facie guilty of copyright violations and plagiarism". The judge hearing the case added "to my untrained ear, the music [in the two works] appeared to be similar".
After the courts sided with Sampath, and promptly issued an order blocking the release of the film unless the disputed songs were removed, both parties started negotiating, and have now reached a settlement which will allow the movie to continue to be distributed uncut. As well as the financial pay out to Sampath, the movie's producers, Roshan's company Filmkraft, have agreed to give the ad man credit on the film and its official soundtrack release.