Father India and My Father

This is a follow-up to Mother India and My Father.
Read it after this post: Please.


Found on Ads of the World.com:
'As per the census, there are 958 women for 1000 men.
Because, more than 1 million female foetuses are aborted
every year. Wake up before it's too late.
Ban Sex Determination.'

Agency: Index Advertising
Copywriter: Shoeb Shaikh
Art Director: Shoeb Shaikh & Khalil Shaikh

Think this is a great bit of creative work by Index Advertising
Agency and the two Shaikhs involved ? Ads of the World did,
perhaps because their reasoning is, the message gets through
to the target audience via an iconic image. But consider this : the
iconic artwork is simply a revamping of an old classic movie poster
which most Indian moviegoers are familiar with. So : shouldn't the
Artist and/or the film Producer be credited or thanked in some form ?
In all fairness, there hasn't been a complete butchering of the work
in this case, only the word 'Mother' has been changed to 'Father',
in English and in Hindi. Not too bad, but is the mash-up of a classic
iconic image something to be reviled ? Does anyone care ?

Apparently not, especially when almighty Bollywood has been getting
away with wholesale copyright infringement for decades, thereby setting
the (low) standard for other media in India. This is something I had been
musing on as a Blog post for a good while now and so it's only natural
that something like Indian Blogger Nita's words would set me off :

'One hears of bloggers infringing copyright but have you ever
heard of a major “reputed” publication stealing a blogger’s work?
Well, here is an instance. I got a shock to see that a reputed
newspaper like the Hindustan Times had stolen a photograph
of mine.'

Nita the newswoman-turned-blogger has neatly ignited folks' ire
against infringement not only nationwide but globally as well,
judging by the comments posted. Read it all here.

Getting back to what I was aiming for. I've decided that I'm as guilty
as most others are when it comes to Mash-ups, Photoshopping
and the like because it's a fun process, but I must take a harder
look at whether I want to ignore the legal and ethical aspects involved.

And now, take a look at the original poster created by my father,
then read my post about him here.