Folklore: Shah Abdul Karim's songs passed off as 'traditional music'

Folklore: Shah Abdul Karim’s songs passed off as ‘traditional music’

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Without the permission of Shah Abdul Karim’s family, two top Indian music labels, Saregama and T-Series, have been releasing his songs on YouTube, Spotify and social media for years.

In fact, the name of the original producer of the song, Shah Abdul Karim, was not even mentioned in the music video of the song ‘Age Ki Shundor Din Kataitaam’. Rather, T-Series has presented the song as a ‘traditional’ folk song.

Copyright experts are calling releasing songs (intellectual property) without the permission of the copyright owners as ‘piracy’. Besides, they also consider presenting that song as a ‘traditional’ folk song as a serious crime.

After looking into the matter, it was found that Saregama had recorded Karim’s song ‘Ami Bangla Mayer Chele’ in 2006 and ‘Aage Ki Shundor Din Katitam’ with ‘Gaan Gai Amar’ in 2007. Meanwhile, T-Series had recorded the song ‘Ami Tomar’. ‘Koller Gari’ came back in 2012 and released a music video of the song ‘Age Ki Shundor Din Kataitaam’ on 27 September.

Neither of the companies took permission from Karim or his family. Karim’s family has expressed their anger over the issue of describing Karim’s songs as ‘traditional’ music.

His son Shah Noor Jalal, also a Baul musician, filed a complaint against T-Series with the Bangladesh Copyright Office on 1 October. Earlier on September 17 also he had filed a complaint against Saregama.

Shah Noor Jalal sought compensation from Saregama and T-Series. “T-Series and Saregama have released the songs without our permission,” he told Prothom Alo last Monday. In fact, they didn’t even tell me my father’s name. This cannot be accepted in any way.”

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