Piracy as culturePiracy as culture
Karachi is slowly becoming a hub of cultural activities despite a long-lasting wave of terror across the country. Theatre has finally been revived, cinemas are getting back, art exhibitions and fashion weeks are held, and festivals, literary or otherwise, are organized every now and then. But all of this is not helping our educated and learned people to recognize and respect intellectual property rights.
One glaring example of such a violation of intellectual property rights is Shah Sharabeel’s latest production of Bombay Dreams, currently being staged at the Arts Council Theatre in Karachi till February 20, 2011.
Shah Sharbeel is a famous theatre director who brought us Moulin Rouge last year for a successful round of houseful entertainment for four weeks under the auspices of Centre Stage Productions sponsored with millions of rupees by a private cellular company. But this time around, he went one step ahead as he launched and advertised Bombay Dreams by boasting himself as its director and the Oscar-winning A R Rahman its music composer.
Bombay Dreams was basically a production of Andrew Lloyd Webber, who had based it on a book by Meera Syal and Thomas Meehan. A R Rehman composed its music and Don Black penned the lyrics. The first production of Bombay Dreams opened in 2002 in London, and later it became a Broadway success story.
However, Mr. Sharabeel misguided his audiences by portraying it as if he had managed to have Rehman on board for the score of his adaptation of the play. According to media reports, he admitted he did not have the permission of either A R Rehman or Really Useful Group (Rug), which owns the copyright of Bombay Dreams. But Jo Preston, a Rug official, has been reported of initiating a legal case against Centre Stage Productions
All of this does not change the fact that Pakistan is a member of World Intellectual Property Organization, and thus the latter requires Pakistan government to take measures against the violation of intellectual property rights. The World Trade Organization (WHO) also requires of its members to ensure copyrights and curb those who are found guilty of violating them.
Nevertheless, having intellectual property laws should not be enough. They must be enforced to protect artists from piracy and unauthorized use of their artistic creation worldwide. Thus, WTO has in place an international agreement known as Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which says (in Part 3): “Governments have to ensure that intellectual property rights can be enforced under their laws, and that the penalties for infringement are tough enough to deter further violations.”
Having known the penalties of such violations, the learned director of now-pirated Bombay Dreams, Shah Sharabeel, continues to stage the production. He’s also on record saying: “Pakistan is a third world country, probably like Uganda to A R Rahman, why would he even care that he is being given credit or not?” Obviously, why would Rehman care! But Shah Sharbeel should have cared before plagiarizing the play and using Rehman’s stardom to his own fortune. This is also evident of how the famous director views the laws of the very country he lives in. And rightly so, because the Intellectual Property Organisation of Pakistan and other concerned officials, from tax to censor departments have apparently turned a blind eye to this case of piracy, which explains a lot about the culture of piracy in our country.
Published in The News International (Op-Ed), February 11th, 2011.