Plagiarism, as defined in the 1995 Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary, is the "use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work."
As a 6 year old,my interest in guitar was fueled by few songs by our very own legends of Indian film music. The guitar solo part from ek haseena thi from the old movie karz, the mehbooba song from sholay, dum maaro dum from hare rama hare krishna, Akele hum akele tum's 'Raja ko rani se pyaar ho gaya etc etc. I used to wonder how they made such wonderful tunes.
Thomas alva edison said "Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration", i slowly found out the reverse applies too.
Raja ko Rani se Pyar ho gaya [Film: Akele Hum Akele Tum] is inspired from the Love theme - Godfather by Nino Rota!
Ek Haseena Thi [Film: Karz (1980)] is a blatant lift from George Benson's 'We as love' (1977).
Mehbooba Mehbooba [Film: Sholay (1975)] is inspired from Demis Roussoss’s Say You Love Me.
Many more songs we have listened to, liked,connected to things in our life and in few people's case inspired; have been inspirations of our music directors.
For deep reading please check out this wonderful website
itwofs.com - chronicles of plagiarism in indian film music
On the right side of the webpage you will find links for music directors and their inspirations.
Disclaimer-
Inspiration and genius--one and the same.
Victor Hugo
Knowing little about music,i can say that arranging the music and making it
a complete song is not a easy thing even if the song has been inspired.
So i still do respect our music directors and their inspirations. But kudos to the original composers and artists. I think they do deserve credit too.
Thank you,
Gautham