Reincarnation is the New Copyright Saga!
June 9, 2017
Biswajit Sarkar - IP Law Firm India
Post time: 8:39 am
Copyright infringement cases have been on the rise in the recent past. However, the plaintiffs in the respective cases always wait for the eleventh hour i.e. a few days before the release of the movies to file a copyright infringement case against the defendants. The most recent case involves that of the upcoming Bollywood movie ‘Raabta’ and the 2009 release Telegu movie ‘Magadheera’. The producers of Magadheera a movie based on reincarnation and directed by S.S. Rajamouli, have alleged that the “storyline, plot and screenplay” of Raabta, produced by T-Series and Homi Adjania and directed by Dinesh Vijan starring Sushant Singh Rajput and Kriti Sanon has been copied from their film.
The plaintiffs were seeking an injunction against the release of the movie on the basis of copyright infringement. The defendants have not only rejected the claims made by the plaintiffs but also emphasised that copyright law protects expression and not ideas, themes and plots.
The movie has been cleared for release after the plaintiffs withdrew their copyright infringement case. The case was presented to the honourable court as to how the films are not similar. The hearing went on for about 5 hours where the defendants described in detail several differences in the script and storylines of Raabta and Magadheera. They ensured to pointed out that the concerns of the makers of Magadheera that of the iconic 100 warriors scene has been lifted in Raabta is completely unfounded as there was no such scene either in their film or the trailer. However, on the next day, the plaintiffs withdrew their case.
The defendants appeared to have a credible argument in terms of the idea-expression dichotomy i.e. a love story involving reincarnation is an idea that should be free of copyright encumbrances. Reincarnation as a genre is very popular as can be justified with many movies like Karan Arjun, Karz and Om Shanti Om.
The defendants had filed the entire script of the film along with a comparative chart showing how the two films are completely different in their story, treatment and expression. They were also able to submit a list of around 100 movies based on reincarnation to court to support their defence.
The producers of Raabta had to deal with another copyright infringement case where a Punjabi singer J-star accused T-Series of stealing copyright infringement of his song ‘Na Na Na Na’ for the film.
