The Indian film accused of blatantly plagiarizing EXO's songs could be involved in a legal battle with SM Entertainment. The agency that manages EXO recently announced that it will be taking legal action against the Indian film "Kannayya" for stealing two of the K-Pop group's tracks.
On Feb. 14, Tuesday, it was reported that the Indian Telegu-language film had allegedly plagiarized two of EXO's hit songs, as All Kpop previously reported. Two of the films songs, "Dhamki Marr" and "Baby Kanipinchav" were sounded exactly the same as EXO's "Growl" and "Baby Don't Cry" respectively. In addition, the film was also accused of ripping off LC9's "Mama Beat."
The film's songs are also on iTunes as part of Kannaya's OSTs and were released by Mango Music on Jan. 20. The tracks are currently priced at USD 1.29 but no credit was given to the original creators of the song or the idol groups that originally performed the tracks.
Several fans noticed the similarities between the songs and expressed their anger over the Indian film's alleged plagiarism and urged SM Entertainment to take appropriate action. Some fans even demanded the makers of the film to issue an apology and remove the songs from the film.
While there has been no comment from the film's production company Poppin Films, SM Entertainment has issued an official statement, obtained by Koreaboo, in the wake of the fan backlash. In its statement, the label called out the film for plagiarizing EXO's songs and proposed legal action against whose responsible for the same.
"The songs in question by the Indian artist are definitely cases of plagiarism," the agency said. "We will take appropriate action after we discuss the situation with the song's publishers and copyright owners."
The song copied from "MaMa Beat" can be heard immediately at the start of the video, while the track copied from EXO's "Growl"can be heard at 4:24. The "Baby Don't Cry" rip-off starts playing at the 14:33 mark. Listen to the songs below: