Bollywood: YouTuber Receives Copyright Strike Over Tunes In a Game Menu Similar to ‘80s Bollywood Song

In a bizarre turn of events, a streamer was hit with a copyright strike by YouTube for a song from the 1980 Bollywood film Shaan.

The streamer Parkenharbor uploaded a video of her playing the Jump King video game on her YouTube channel, Parkenharbor Archives. The video showcased her exploring the various options on the game’s menu screen, with each selection accompanied by a distinct mechanical sound effect. Interestingly, the combination of her actions and the corresponding sounds resembled the prelude of a popular Bollywood song, Doston Se Pyar Kiya, from the 1980 film Shaan directed by Ramesh Sippy.

If the names don’t ring any bells yet, here’s some context. The film boasted an ensemble cast of yesteryear superstars, including Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Sunil Dutt, Shatrughan Sinha, Rakhee, Parveen Babi, Johnny Walker, and Kulbhushan Kharbanda. The music for the film was composed by the legendary music director R.D. Burman, and the song Doston Se Pyar Kiya was rendered by Usha Uthup. The copyrights of the song are held by Universal Music India.

Going back to the issue at hand, Parkenharbor’s strike from YouTube now prevents her from monetising the video, which has now been made private. However, her channel will not be affected by this copyright strike whatsoever, as is mentioned in the details that she received from YouTube.

Beeping options in the game similar to Shaan’s song’s prelude

Regardless, it is interesting to note how the YouTube algorithm works and recognises similarity in audio content. On the first listen, it’s difficult to understand how YouTube even makes the connection between the two sound effects. But if paid attention, one can notice a vague “rhythm” to the beeps in the game, that loosely matches with that of the song’s prelude, though the two are on very different scales.

Parkenharbor took it light-heartedly, laughing her way through most of her video about the hilarity of the situation. However, this is an example of how creators are susceptible to random strikes, that might put their channels in danger, depending on unconvincing allegations based on AI. Regardless, it was a weirdly fun callback to the once super-hit Bollywood song for all the Indians out there.