Pakistani music company sues Indian Youtube channel for illegally using its songs

LAHORE - We all know that several Indian composers have taken inspiration from a number of Pakistani tracks in the past. Be it  Hawa Hawa or Agar Tum Mil Jao, Indian musicians have literally copied Pakistani tracks many times.

This time, however, things have gone a step further, as an Indian YouTube channel has gone as far as posting Pakistani music without acquiring the proper rights to do so. YouTube channel ‘The Last Cigarette’ with roughly has 375000 subscribers has been posting music by artists Bayaan, Kashmir – The Band, 21 The Band, Naseer Afridi, Khamaaj alongside Ali Sethi and others.

After the channel was discovered, Pakistani record label Rearts, that represents Bayaan, Kashmir, 21 The Band, Naseer Afridi, and Khamaaj sent out a legal notice, accusing the channel of copyright infringement. Rearts also shared the news on their Twitter, narrating the entire incident.

“In the past few days, we were brought to the attention of a youtube channel by the title of ‘Last Cigarette’. This channel had roughly 375k subscribers with millions of views on nearly all of its posted videos,” the tweet read.

“The music on this channel featured the content of five artists from our label which had not been obtained from the artists with prior consent,” read the post.

Here is the tweet:

A statement on the recent termination of the YouTube channel 'The Last Cigarette' by rearts records. @Kashmirtheband @BayaanOfficial @naseerandshahab @21TheBand @Khamaaj_band#respectart pic.twitter.com/iTele3dGxy

— rearts (@reartspk) April 20, 2020

The statement also added that since monetization had been enabled on the channel, a significant amount of revenue had been generated with more views on the videos posted by the channel than the original ones. Butt also added that there had been a backlash for the bands after a legal notice was sent to the YouTube channel.

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