Hijack Hanuman

On 8th May 2019, Mystic Tree, a small collaborative music project involving several international artists, received an email from their international music distributor. They were informed, much to their shock, that a certain aarti.jain@rp-sg.in had filed a copyright infringement claim with several online music stores and streaming services against their recently released Hanuman Chalisa (Reggae Version) track.

Without giving Mystic Tree a chance at rebuttal or even query the nature of the alleged infringement, RP-SG forced the removal of the entire release (including the instrumental version) of their Hanuman Chalisa track from all online stores and streaming services. Mystic Tree was given no further information or explanation, and simply told to contact the complainant’s email address above to resolve the issue.

Since then we have written to Aarti Jain of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group several times, requesting her to share the nature and details of the deemed infringement. Not surprisingly, there has been no response. So basically, the tracks which we spent several months working on, have been removed and we have no idea why, or next steps to take, if any. Thank you RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group.

The question that we would now like to ask our audience is whether they deem it morally acceptable of RP-SG to claim rights over a prayer that is several hundred years old, is in the public domain and has numerous renditions of it sung by various artists in a variety of traditional melodies? Considering that the Hanuman Chalisa track is a devotional one, with purely spiritual fulfillment as its goal, what could RP-SG hope to gain by forcing this track to be removed? Money? If the only objective of doing so is purely profit-oriented, then this act is not just morally reprehensible, but pathetic even, given that the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group is a $3BN USD company!

We have created this website to help raise awareness of this issue, and also to gather public sentiment. Surely no corporate has the right to dictate who can produce and share their version of an ancient prayer? If this is acceptable, we believe it is setting a dangerous precedent and the primary victim will be spirituality.

We have included below, a link for you to download Mystic Tree’s Reggae Version of the Hanuman Chalisa free of charge so you can better evaluate the issue. Please also feel free to leave a comment or show your support for Mystic Tree on social media.