Saturday, April 05, 2008

Repackaging and Renovating Timeless Ideas is Good

Indian film industry apart from making very good original stuff has from times immemorial also ‘copied’, ‘remade’ or ‘stolen an idea’ from India and abroad. While I am all for copy right protection and am not dwelling into that aspect in this write-up, I am all for ‘repackaging’ timeless ideas and powerful social messages. I hate cry babies and critics who dismiss such attempts without a thought.
Look at ‘Rang de Basanti’, which has so beautifully packaged the idea of patriotism and placed it in the context of modern India. ‘Jab We Met’ could have been dismissed as just another love story as also would have been ‘Bobby’, ‘Love Story’ and ‘Rocky’ etc but look at how well they did. The audience and the consumer has a way of dealing with ‘fake’ products, services, ideas and fake ‘attempts’.
The Indian market place is a place where most of the consumer class is getting exposed to products and services for the first time in their life. Not only that, even in existing products and services they are realizing 'world class' for the first time. Companies which are operating on seemingly ‘simple’ and ‘copied’ ideas are also doing very well. Nothing wrong with that and I personally would welcome more and more such attempts as long as it doesn't infringe IPRs.
Stability will however come in such businesses and ideas with full commitment, dedication and if an attempt is made to actually better these benchmarks. Indian market today offers ‘scale’ and ‘timing’ advantage which only China can rival and businesses must take full advantage of it.

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