Anirudh Ravichander is one of the most popular music composers in the Tamil film industry at present. After delivering a series of foot-tapping numbers in Tamil films, he also ventured into Bollywood with Atlee's Jawan. However, the young music director is facing allegations of plagiarism after he shared a song from Vijay's Leo. The Lokesh Kanagaraj-directorial, currently running in theatres, also featured songs and background score by Anirudh.
On Monday, Anirudh took to social media to share a song titled 'Ordinary Person' from the film. Soon after the song was released, several netizens claimed the song was a copy of Peaky Blinders track 'Where Are You', composed by Belarusian musician Otnicka. "For this shameless rip-off, he is earning more than AR Rahman. Quite sad. I hope Otnicka initiates a legal action so that he stops stealing ideas,” a user wrote on platform X. Several users also tagged Otnicka in the comments and also sent him direct messages and mails.
“Anirudh has ripped Ordinary Person from Otnicka, a Bulgarian Artist’s soundtrack. He has just added the lyrics over the track, “ another user wrote.
With messages flooding his inbox, Otnicka took to Instagram to clarify that he was monitoring the developments, and that the situation is “very unclear”. He wrote: "Guys, thanks for hundreds of your messages about the movie "Leo". I can see everything, but it's physically impossible to answer everyone. The mail is overflowing with messages, Instagram, as well as thousands of comments on YouTube under the video "Where Are You". The situation is very unclear. We are looking into this and a little later I will give an assessment of everything that is happening (sic)."
Replying to one of the comments, Otnicka clarified that no one contacted him or his team for the song's license. “ The label does not own the copyright and cannot grant a license without the artist's knowledge,” he wrote.