'Kacha Badam' song videos are mindless violations of the copyright of a poor music creator.

Bhuban Badyakar, a peanut seller from West Bengal composed the song 'Badam Badam Dada Kacha Badam,' based on popular Baul folk tune. He sings this song while selling peanuts in exchange for broken and unusable household items in remote villages of Bengal. Recently, the song was recorded and shared on YouTube by a channel and it got twenty-plus million views in 2 months, according to the NDTV Food site.

He became a social media star overnight and people from various levels of society danced to the tune of the viral song. Several people landed in his village and made him sing the song repeatedly so that they could share the "original video" on social media!!

Did Bhupan get anything in return for his creation? In his own words, "They are making a lot of money by uploading the song on the internet. But my hands are empty."

Why should the social media creators pay him since the videos were recorded with his permission? Bhupan is the copyright owner of this song. He has all right to make monetary benefits out of his work. His consent to sing the song for creating a video does not mean that he permitted you to make money out of such recordings and not share with him.

The most important question is if the permission was an 'informed permission.

Why should the social media creators pay him since the videos were recorded with his permission?
Here is the answer. Bhupan is the copyright owner of this song. He has all right to make monetary benefits out of his work. His consent to sing the song for creating a video does not mean that he permitted you to make money out of such recordings and not share with him.

The most important question is if the permission was an 'informed permission.'

Was he informed of the money you might make from sharing the video on social media?
Did you inform him that you would not share such monetary gains with him? If you recorded, shared, and made money out of the videos without informing him about the monetary gain, every single video so uploaded, shared, adapted, remixed, and performed is a copyright infringement of Bhupan's right in his original song. Even videos made from original videos are copyright violations.

He had filed a complaint in the local police station against such unauthorized sharing of his videos. Hope he is duly compensated and rewarded for his beautiful creation.

Copyright is not one-way traffic.

Award Winning Article Is Written By: Mr.Yash Sharma

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