Madras High Court Issues Notice On Plea Seeking One Crore Damages Over Copyright Infringement By Ajith Starrer Film 'Valimai'

Madras High Court has issued notice to the makers of Tamil film 'Valimai', starring Ajith, after the Producer of a 2016 Movie called 'Metro' alleged that the former is a substantial replica of the latter.The bench of Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy has posted the matter on 17th March, 2022 for further hearing.The plea before Madras High Court by J.Jayakrishnan and his production company- E5 Entertainments Private Limited, accused the makers of the big-budget film of ripping off the storyline of 'Metro' substantially. According to Jayakrishnan, 'base storyline, narration, sequential arrangement of scenes, emotional ingredients and character sketches of all important characters' of 'Valimai' have been substantially copied from his 2016 hit film 'Metro'.Apart from granting a permanent injunction against utilising/ exploiting the film 'Valimai' in any manner, the makers of 'Metro' has also sought Rs 1 Crore as damages for unauthorised copying of their film. Additionally, another direction sought by the plaintiff includes the defendants rendering the accounts of profit made by releasing the movie 'Valimai' and paying the same to Plaintiff."In the movie METRO, the Director opted every character, its emotional element, attitude to fit well within the storyline of the Movie. While so, the Movie VALIMAI copies every minute detail of those characters' emotion, attitude etc which has made almost every viewer to arrive a conclusion that the Defendant's movie VALIMAI is copy of Plaintiff's copyrighted work METRO", the plain that has been filed alleging contravention of Sections 51, 55 and 62 of the Copyright Act, 1957 and the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012.'Valimai' was directed by H. Vinodh and produced by Zee Entertainment and Bayview Projects LLP run by Boney Kapoor. Zee Entertainment has also been the Distributor of the film that hit the theatres on 24th February 2022.According to the producer of 'Metro', they have been working on remaking the film in Hindi and other languages when 'Valimai' was released in multiple languages. Many news articles, public reviews and opinion pieces are also relied upon by the plaintiff to prove that the movie was essentially copied from 'Metro'."...Thereby, the Plaintiffs‟ right to translate, reproduce, remake their copyrighted work METRO in any other language is curtailed. The plaintiff has lost their potential chance of exploiting the copyrighted work in other languages and thereby incurred huge loss...", the plaintiff states.While comparing the 'substance, the foundation, the kernel' of the two films to consider whether one was 'by and large a copy' of the other, it is evident that an average viewer gets an unmistakable impression that the work of the Defendants is a copy of the Plaintiff's, it was submitted on behalf of the producer of 'Metro'."....The way of storytelling, character selections and related emotional ingredients made the movie METRO a huge success. Even now the movie METRO is exclusively available in Netflix which acclaims huge viewership", the plaintiffs remarked about their movie.According to Mr Jayakrishnan, the makers of 'Valimai' has appropriated 'substantial‟ and 'material' part of the protected work of the Movie 'Metro'. The major plot of unemployment, chain snatching and drug peddling syndicates in Chennai, the similar suspense factor and the similarities in character development all indicates that a case for infringement has been made out, he submitted.The plaintiffs also added that minor variations/ cosmetic additions have been inserted in 'Valimai', owing to its elaborate canvas as a big-budget and star-studded film, hence making it less prone to getting caught in the clutches of law."After the release of Valimai, the Director and Producer of the movie METRO have been receiving phone calls and messages stating that the movie VALIMAI is is substantially taken from the story of movie METRO. After that the plaintiff saw the movie and arrived conclusion that substantial portion of the movie VALIMAI, its characters, their emotions, sequential arrangement of plots, crucial emotional ingredients are all derived and substantially taken from the story of METRO, the plaintiff added.Case Title: J.Jayakrishnan & Anr v. Bayview Projects Limited Liability Partnership Represented by its Director Boney Surinder KapoorCase No: O.A.No.138 of 2022 in C.S.(Comm.Div.) No.46 of 2022Click Here To Read/ Download Order

Madras High Court Issues Notice On Plea Seeking One Crore Damages Over Copyright Infringement By Ajith Starrer Film 'Valimai'

Sebin James

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