Court stays release of ‘Aa Ante Amalapuram’ in the movie ‘Maximum’

Republished from BarandBench The City Civil Court, Hyderabad in an order dated 22 June, 2012 has granted interim protection against the copyright violation of the song Aa Ante Amalapuram from the upcoming Bollywood movie Maximum on a suit filed by Aditya Music against Vainteya Films, Super Cassettes and Kabeer Kaushik. If the issue is not resolved, then the movie cannot be released with the song in it. The Plaintiffs have filed a suit for protection of copyright (M/s Aditya Music (India) Pvt Ltd. v Vainteya Films & Others) wherein the Plaintiffs have stated the song in the movie Maximum has been lifted from Telugu movie Arya, whose copyright is possessed by the Plaintiffs. Aditya Music was represented by Trilegal. Trilegal Hyderabad Partner, D Pavan Kumar along with Associates Emil Joseph and Sahiti Gopalajosyula briefed Senior Counsel CV Mohan Reddy. [caption id=“attachment_357911” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Screengrab from YouTube trailer of Maximum.”]  [/caption] The City Civil Court, after hearing the arguments, granted an ad-interim injunction restricting the Respondents “from manufacturing, marketing, selling, transferring, assigning, using in any manner commercially exploiting” the impugned song till 2 July 2012. The Court directed that urgent notice be issued to the Respondents. Speaking to Bar & Bench, Trilegal Partner Pavan Kumar said that the provisions in this case were very clear. The rights with respect to the original Telugu song originally rested with the producer, which were then assigned to the music company. Any remake or dubbing of the audio would have required permission from the music company. This was not done in this case. Further commenting on the case, he highlighted the constant trend of dubbings or remakes of South Indian hit songs in Bollywood and suggested a careful approach in this regard. “They should be careful about what rights are being exercised and whether a case of copyright violations is made”.