There has been a lot of heated discussion going over these days in Pakistan on the topic of “Music Piracy”. Some of the leading stars have also raised their voices and taken initiative to curb piracy and to get rid of it so as to enable artistes to get paid from their creative work.
Having closely working with music industry and releasing content online since 2006, following are some of my recommendations which should be taken into consideration before launching any campaign against Piracy in Pakistan.
1. Piracy can’t be eliminated, but can only be REDUCED.
2. There is a huge debate going on in International Media whether Piracy affects the artist or really promote it?
3. Piracy laws can’t be implemented in Pakistan! not before 2020 I believe.
4. Our own Pakistani people don’t Know about PIRACY & its cons or may be they just don’t find it worthy to Buy/Listen/support our own music.
Most of the Pakistanis are still listening “Bollywood Music” rather than “Pakistani Music” . First of all, we need to convince OUR OWN PEOPLE to listen to OUR OWN STUFF (I have been working on this cause for long time)
5. Another issue we come across every now and then is that We(Pakistanis) don’t recognize our Artists until his/her song gets featured in Bollywood movie.
To prove this point we have loads of examples:
Atif Aslam’s Woh Lamhay
Roxen’s Tera Mera Rishta
Annie’s Mahiya
Shiraz Uppal’s Roya Re
Adeel Chaudhry’s Shake your body now
and lastly Nouman Javaid’s songs for JASHN Movie
6. Rapper Imran Khan’s back to back concerts in Pakistan is an EYE OPENER, it depicts WHAT THE MASSES’ WANT/LIKE & WHAT ACTUALLY IS THEIR MUSIC KNOWLEDGE. This is another reason that we are deprived of listening LIVE, talented musicians like guitar maestro Aamir Zaki, the rocking band Karavan , the very soulful Hadiqa Kiyani & other such talented acts.
Note: This post is written as a response to Ali Zafar’s initiative against Piracy in Pakistan.
