http://www.qienit.com/can-tplfs-reputat ... -unabated/
5 May, 2022
Once again, TPLF & its cohorts are engaged in stealing, violating & vandalising Eritrean music, lyrics and melodies. The latest victim of TPLF’s state sponsored vandalism is the main body of the great work of art, lyrics and melody of Eritrea’s timeless legend Tsehaytu Beraki (RIP). Eritreans all over the world are expressing their anger after witnessing, once again, the work of art of their legend stolen and released on YouTube last Saturday by an account named “Lijam melody”.
With a lawless authorities in Tigray with a past reputation of encouraging such piracy, today they have put forward as a tool of their cultural vandalism, a vocalist at the epicentre of it all, by the name Mahlet Geregiorgis. It may be legal to do that in a lawless Tigray held hostage by the lawless TPLF Junta but once the stolen material is uploaded on YouTube for financial gain, they can’t get away with it as she is in clear violation of the copyright laws. They have neither given recognition, nor asked permission from the original creator.
During its time in power, the TPLF regime used to have a field day abusing its power corrupting so many people by encouraging such unwarranted vandalism in a cultural sphere when they used to dip their sticky fingers into the jar until Eritreans finally decided to take the matter to the law after Legend Abraham Afeworki’s works of Art were stolen. What makes many of our victims of such daylight robberies such as Abraham Afeworki, Taehaytu Beraki and many others is that, unlike the thieving vocalist from Tigray region held hostage by the TPLF, the Eritrean artists aren’t only vocalists but are also talented in playing various musical instruments, creating their melody & writing their own lyrics. Whereas, the only talents of the lazy thieves calling themselves “Artists” from across the Mereb River is to vocally imitate or ape others’ works of art, infringe on Copy-Right laws, pretend the music they stole is theirs and engage in deceitful business in order to make a living by monetising it on YouTube.
The vandal vocalist Mahlet Geregiorgis, who stole Tsehaitu Beraki’s melody and the main body of her lyrics and released it on YouTube via “Liham Melody” platform (with 381K subscribers), has gained 246K views since it was uploaded on the eve of Easter Sunday.
If the host doesn’t immediately take the action to remove the stolen work of art from its YouTube platform, we can show our protest by unsubscribing the platform that hosted a stolen music & report the copyrights infringement.
The great news is that, the following day on a special Sunday Fasiga Live program from Asmara, artists Eden Kesete and Samuel Zerezghi (Esau) have released via a new and upcoming YouTube platform called “Shro Entertainment” a new and beautiful traditional music of such creative work of arts backed by a Live musical band and have gained fame already with a record 287K views in a space of only four days since it was released….
Though we are proud of our incremental rise in creative works of art, but we also got so wary of seeing our creative works of art vandalised almost on a regular basis. Our music, our history, our pictures, including pictures of some Eritrean icons that are still alive have been stolen by a special TPLF’s branch of photo-shopping army called Digital-Weyane.
Once again, those notorious vandals who are absolutely bereft of any morality, credibility, integrity, ability, creativity and confidence are expected to stalk on any of our newly released and old works of art and make it a target of their usual thievery to gain fame for few days before they inevitably go down the gutter after getting reported to the cleaners…..
The cat & mouse game will continue as we have no choice, but continue to create while they continue to steal. And if they want to continue playing the cat & mouse game, we'll make sure we are the cats.
Cultural correspondent, 29/4/2022
