HC holds Roshans guilty of lifting Krazzy4 title track

MUMBAI: In an unprecedented order that will be music to artistes’ ears, the Bombay high court on Thursday ruled that producer-director Rakesh Roshan and his composer brother Rajesh Roshan had plagiarised music composed by Ram Sampath for their film Krazzy4.

In a landmark order on copyright infringement, Justice DG Karnik came down heavily on the Roshans for their “dishonesty”. The order restraining the Roshans from releasing the film on April 11 with the “plagiarised” music amounted to a virtual death knell for Krazzy4 as the film uses Sampath’s music in two songs as well as in the background score.

Sampath had scored the music for a Sony Ericsson jingle titled Thump.

However, the Roshans settled the matter with Sampath for Rs2 crore, the amount he had originally claimed in damages. “For me the victory came when the court held the Roshans to be plagiarists and dishonest,” Sampath told DNA minutes after signing the consent terms to assign the rights of his music for ‘Thump’ to the Roshans. With Sampath’s green signal, the court allowed the film’s release.

The suit filed by Sampath, an independent composer, marked a rare instance in Bollywood where copyright violations are rampant.