The recent outrage against Rajkumar Hirani’s masterpiece ‘PK’ for hurting religious sentiments was struck down as groundless by the Delhi High Court. But just before the Hirani camp could puff out the sigh of relief from its belly, it found itself knocked over by one more legal notice alleging copyright infringement by a Hindi novelist named Kapil Isapuri.
With
his usual signature style, Rajkumar Hirani presents PK movie starring
the flamboyant Aamir Khan. With a child like curiosity, Aamir Khan was
portrayed as an alien with bulging green eyes and Peterpan like ears
coupled with his unique expressions that earned the movie “PK” A MUST WATCH! from
several film critiques. However, someone had a real bad feeling about
it. What makes this outlandish and fun throne movie to fall into the
trap of copyright issue is a plagiarism claim by the aforementioned
novelist. He has alleged before the Delhi High Court that the movie PK
has been stolen and copied from his written novel Farishta. As per the news reports, the petition alleges
reproduction of several expressions in form of both scenes and
characters directly from his book without taking prior authorization
from him.
Reproduction
of a work from one form into the other makes it a derivative work and
since it carries the protected elements of an original work, permission
of the copyright owner’s is necessary. Adaptation of a literary work
like a novel into a cinematographic work also falls under this category.
From a legal point
of view, this kind of scenario portrays a very unique situation wherein
courts have to analyze the thin line of difference that drives the
Idea-Expression dichotomy. Copyright doesn’t subsists in a mere idea. It
subsists in its expression and while comparing a non-literary work with
a literary work to figure this out, the task becomes even more
difficult. Albeit there is no straightforward formula that can be
applied to determine infringement in such cases, the courts generally
look for appropriation of ‘substantial portion’ of the original work to
determine infringement. Every minute thing like the plot, theme,
characters, sequence of events, etc. are compared to establish if there
has been an infringement or not. Courts in US and Canada have already
started taking expert assistance
in such matters and it’s just a matter of time when Indian Courts may
also start thinking beyond the Judge’s wisdom to determine infringement
in such cases.
Earlier also, book-writer Chetan Bhagat had accused Rajkumar
Hirani & co. for not giving him a due credit for adaptation of his
novel ‘Five Point Someone’ in the making of movie ‘3 Idiots’. Akshay
Kumar’s Namastey London also became subject matter of a copyright infringement case filed
by a Bengali producer some time ago. As for now, it’s very premature to
comment anything merely on the basis of news reports. Also there are no
established precedents because some of these cases are sub-judice
before courts, while some of them never reach their conclusion because
of settlements between
the parties. While it’s one thing to say that directors and producers
deliberately do this for publicity, it’s also true that nobody likes to
face the trait and dust of courts in anticipation of making a few more
bucks. Besides, when the chances are 50-50, like in current case, out of
the court settlement is the best way out.
Written by: Swasti Panda
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