Musical Plagiarism: Inspiration vs. Theft

The world of music keep evolving day by day and keeps getting better. We keep witnessing new and creative things day by day. It is certain that we have witness a whole lot of creativity for the past decades even to this particular point. Take for example in the afrobeat niche which I am conversant with. There have been a major transition that has happened. There have been transitions that happens like from the fela Kuti to the Burnaboy that we have right now.

But presently, in the world of music, there is a big issue that a lot of musicians are facing and that is in the aspect of musical plagiarism which is called theft. Some people always deny the aspect of plagiarism as then drawing inspiration from others people work. But I strongly believe that it is a thin line between getting inspiration from other people's work and also trying to steal their work.

Musical plagiarism as it is called happens when you make use of someone's work without not giving them permission for their work. In my country specifically Nigeria, it has become something so rampant. The issue is a whole lot of music genre that we have seems to be following the repetitive pattern and they can't be blamed. People always tag it as them getting inspirational from others people work buy recently, it has been getting too much and giving room to theft.

Don't get me wrong, I am not against inspiration. Inspiration is something that is very vital when it comes to making music or generally any creative process. In fact, I talked about the power of silence in making music in my last post. I am not against getting inspiration either from your environment, from people experience and many more when trying to make your music but don't let it lead to copying others work almost the same without not adding your own bit of uniqueness.

Theft is getting popular in the music world because a lot of singers will just steal someone idea and creativity without not adding their own work or Originality to it. People steal others beat, steal others verse and even visuals. In fact, this is what is making some singers to copyright their songs because if this continues, it will continually reduce the integrity of the music industry which I believe many of us did not want it to be so.

In fact, it becomes much more worst if as a singer you start gaining more global music scene. Because with the high level of recognition you have, you must be very careful of the work you do. Someone from no where can just come out to accuse you of it and if you are actually guilty, you will pay for it. In fact, they might file a big lawsuit against you and if you are found guilty, you are definitely going to pay huge amount of money for that. Most of the time, the issue is not even the money but it will tamper with your image and reputation.

For me, I believe it is high time the music industry start taking the music world so serious and start been more intentional about it. The more we fight against musical plagiarism, the better it will definitely be for the future of the music industry. The earlier the better it will be.

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