ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH, PUNE - Volume 11, Issue 2, July 2021 - December 2021

Pages: 26-37

Chronicles of Unethical Plagiarism in the Entertainment Industry – the Fear of a Blank Screen: A case study on Bollywood movies

Fatema Shabbir Tandiwala

Category: Human Resource Management

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Abstract:

Plagiarism is ubiquitous, be it the academic world, fashion business, novels, information media, YouTube videos, social media, film industry, and many other domains. Sadly, the Indian cinema has a long, inseparable relationship with plagiarism especially the Bollywood Industry. Right off the bat, the filmmakers, directors, producers, screenwriters are stealing, copying and lifting the concept, plot, posters, or dialogues to the extent that even the music composers are lifting the tunes from the original source and outrightly signaling them as their own, in this manner Bollywood has gone out of the way and embraced it all. As the ideas, themes, scenes, dialogues are not copyrightable it is easily lifted in the name of “inspiration”. Though plagiarism is an ethical issue, it is misleading, a breach of trust, and entails civil suit, ergo, must be reckoned a legal offense by punishing, forfeiting and to charge on the grounds of misdemeanor. Indian cinema is a prime source of entertainment, ruled by the viewers and audiences, it conveys messages, highlights the social issues but now because of the infiltration of plagiarism and copying it has reversed the aspect of entertainment. In addition, when the entire concept, core idea, subject, melodies and even the dialogues are stolen from movies, the original identity is lost. In this way, show businesses suffer heavy losses for the plagiarized movie, faces slurs, shame by the audiences as they feel deceived and cheated. The paper endeavors the basic concept of ethics, the study of the menace of plagiarism, it’s impact on the victim's life. This study has taken preliminary measures and has tried to reveal the magnitude of plagiaristic practices within the Bollywood Industry. This study also aims to highlight the results of plagiarism, the awareness level and perspective of audiences towards the same. A table of plagiarism evidences as an example is identified to show the ongoing regulation of plagiarism in the Bollywood Industry. Thus, the closing remarks alludes the responsibility of the authorities which are releasing the movies that they must check for the originality of the print or if any plagiarism has occurred then the extent of copying or stealing has to be dictated

Keywords: Ethical issue, Movie plagiarism, Film industry, Bollywood movies, Hindi cinema, Originality, Copying