Pakistani musician Farasat Anees has called out Indian music giant T-Series for plagiarising his song ‘BIBA,’ which was featured in film Joyland. He told Images he has the support of Indian fans as well as Pakistani fans and that T-Series has not responded to his emails calling them out.
Images has reached out to the record label for a comment.
On Wednesday, Anees shared bits of both songs for people to compare them. “What a disgrace! T-Series [is] stealing our work because it has been trending in the world. Me and my brothers, Toshi and Slick Trick, worked day and night to bring this song where it is. PLEASE HAVE SOME SHAME and stop ruining every good song from Pakistan,” he captioned his post.
“The love and respect Indians showed to our version of ‘BIBA’ was massive. We will always be grateful for that. [They are] also supporting us in the comment section of this cheap copy of ‘BIBA’. Will always be thankful to listeners across the border!”
He continued, “Even if you wanted to reproduce the song, you should have done [so] with [the] original stuff. [They] clearly stole chords, [the] intro [and] arrangements of our version. CLEAR THEFT! Really hoping someone responsible takes action from T-Series and I request all of our fans, friends and family to share this.”
The artist told Images that the label copied his track and are now “using bots in the OMV comments section”. He shared that they “didn’t even bother” contacting or asking him or his team for permission. For him, the similarities are far too obvious but he still listed them down, mentioning “the whole intro of my original version (instrumentation), arrangements (vocals and beat position) and tempo, key, scale and even the vocal arrangements”.
Anees said his team have reached out to T-Series via email last night but haven’t received a response yet. “I solely own 100 per cent rights of my song ‘BIBA’ (from my debut album 0FIVE1). My version has vocals by the powerful qawal duo Rizwan-Muazzam (I got their vocals from one of my sound packs),” he added.
He said fans of his version around the world are “pissed” at T-Series because of their “cheap move”. He pointed out they sadly have a history of doing this.Last year, the record label came under fire for copying Abrarul Haq’s song ‘Nach Punjaban’ and the iconic Nazia Hassan song ‘Aap Jaisa Koi’.
“I’ve been getting a lot of messages from India, hating on T-Series for [pulling] such an act since it is and has been a viral club desi hit. People now associate their lives and feelings to it,” he explained. “Fans from Pakistan are showing their support for our proud version of ‘BIBA’ [and] ranting [about] T-Series and associated artists on their cheap copy of ‘BIBA’.”
Popular Indian digital creator Diet Sabya and singer Annural Khalid also commented on the matter and called out T-Series for “blatantly copying” the track.
The artist is disappointed that “the world’s largest YouTube channel” is acting this way and getting away with it. “[They are being so] unprofessional, [by not] letting the copyright holders know. [They have the] guts [and] audacity to release it proudly by adding some semi-nude female models to it (in its OMV),” he concluded.
Anees’ song was released two years ago and has 25 million views on YouTube whereas T-Series’ song was released on Wednesday and has amassed 1.1 million views.