Music plagiarism row: Ranavikrama Vs. Lahari Music/T-series

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I came across this piece in today’s Bangalore Mirror (), which says that Lahari Music and T-series have sent legal notices to the producers of the Puneet Rajkumar starrer, Ranavikrama, for allegedly plagiarizing 2 songs from their repertoire.

The title song is Ranavikrama is supposedly based on a song, ‘Jagave ondy ranaranga’ from the 1988 film Ranaranga, with music by Hamsalekha.

The article also says that another song from the film’s soundtrack allegedly uses a tune from a Telugu song from the film Seetharamaiah Gari Manavaralu (1991).

I checked out both the songs in question, from Ranavikrama. (Listen to the songs from )

The title song of Ranavikrama does use the line, ‘Jagave ondu ranaranga’, but the tunes are pretty different.Listen to the 1988 song from Ranaranga.

Hearing that phrase as the opening of both the songs could color your perception about similarity, but the tunes are clearly different, in my view. I’d clear Harikrishna’s (Ranavikrama’s composer) name in this case, at least based on what I hear. I don’t think Lahari and T-series have a case here.

As for the 2nd allegation, I heard the soundtrack of Keeravani’s Seetharamaiah Gari Manavaralu. The song, ‘Kaliki Chilakala Koliki’ seems to be only song that can be used in the context of plagiarism, and connect it with ‘Airdellu Airchillu’ from Ranavikrama.

Listen to Kaliki Chilakala Koliki from Seetharamaiah Gari Manavaralu.

But here’s the deal – both the songs are, again, different. The Telugu song has an authentic folk/classical feel and is a trademark of Keeravani’s style of music – simple and evocative. The Kannada song, with a different tune, has a mock tone – a spoof’y tone that makes fun of things in a in-your-face obvious manner. So, the use of an old’ish, folk’ish tune and modern words thrown in. The feel is that of a folk’ish tune, but the tune isn’t the same as the Telugu song at all. The overall feel is, even perhaps the rhythm, in an obvious way, but not the tune.

I do not believe Lahari or T-series have anything material here to send legal notices to the makers of Ranavikrama.

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