As Reported By AndhraBusiness.com, Largest Online news network for business news in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh
To copy is the right of a writer.
Precisely, that is the definition of copyright, or so goes the translated version of a Telugu article recently published by a popular weekly.
What appeared as a honest confession of a celebrated film writer Mullapudi Venkataramana, known for his wit, in his column Kothi komachi has taken the film and literary circles by storm.
TRP-hungry TV channels lapped up the issue and ran endless shows on the subject digging up murk from the age-old tunnels, unloading skeletons from the forgotten cupboards and sweeping out the dust from underneath, otherwise, colourful carpets.
Plagiarism is tagged to all-time hits like Malleswari to the yet-to-release film Leader.
Very recently, there were two many writers for Jr NTR’s flick Adurs. A claim from Karimnagar was quickly settled. Just before that, Magadheera plungeed into a similar crisis, if not the same ending.
Fine, to write is the right of writers whether they veer right or left, it is left to the writer’s wisdom.
To copy or not to copy is not the writer’s dilemma.
To copy is right or if one has a right to copy or whether the copy is right– well, writers have no time to tread through this road often not taken.
To begin from the beginning, mythological movies marked the advent of talkie films, which are adaptations of the epics or puranas.
Then came the era of social awakening and patriotism where theatre provided the storyboard to majority of the films.
Works of Bengali writer Sharthchandra were the staple diet to many social films in 1950s whether or not acknowledged.
Taking a peep into literature,
Sri Sri’s popular verse
“…pasidi rekkalu visiri kalam paripoyina jadalevi thalli
comes close to John Milton’s
How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol’n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
When it comes to novels, Thomas Hardy had been the most inspiring force to many novelists till 70s along with O. Henry.
In the later part, writing became, as some people phrased it, a cottage industry.
Not very long ago, a group of writers raised a hue and cry as a slew of Telugu novels were published in Kannada by some progressive writers exercising their copy writes.
We need not go into the blame game of pots and kettles but a particular writer of this genre imported Sidney Sheldon’s If Tomorrow Comes in to Telugu under his name.
Back to films, formula films ruled the roost for sometime. A rich girl with her father, a poor boy with his mother—that’s all to familiar a storyline.
There was also one B Vittalacharya whose films in late 60s were rated Grade B but were in way inferior to the present day Harry Potter series, Aliens, Avatar and 2012, if we discount the technology aspect.
With internet and computers erasing boundaries, we are in an age where entertainment has many facets and story line, or the lack of it, certainly is not a priority.
So who cares, even if you cut and paste.
