The Mumbai Police on Wednesday filed an FIR against Google CEO Sundar Pichai and four other Officials for copyright infringement. Youtube Managing Director Gautam Anand is also accused in that case.
The report was filed by producer Sunil Darshan regarding the Illegal uploading of his 2017 film “Ek Hasina Thi Ek Deewana Tha” on YouTube without his knowledge. On such a private complaint, an FIR was registered under section 156(3) of CrPC flowing a magistrate order.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate AA Panchbhai said, “The cases of infringement of copyright works are heard day by day. Nowadays, due to rapid development in technology piracy and copyright infringement has become a menace due to which film and TV suffer a huge amount of money. This industry economy and hence there is a need to put a stop to such menace.”
The MIDC police registered an FIR against them for offenses under Sections 51, 63, and 69 of the Copyright Act. Apart from Pichai and Anand: it also stars other accused Namarta Rajkumar, Pawan Agarwal, and Chaitanya Prabhu, who is joe Grier and grievance producers.
Lawyer of darshan Aditya Chitale said, Darshan has been a film producer for the last 30 years. He did not enable his movie to be uploaded on Youtube yet his movie was uploaded illegally. Chitale said that Darshan had not given the rights to his film to anyone, yet others were taking advantage of it.
He further alleged that the companies were earning hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising revenue during and after the airing of these films. He also claimed that the content was not removed even after several emails by Darshan.
“Since the copyright of the films was exclusive with the complainant and the accused were not prepared to remove the said films from their platform, the complainant also filed a civil suit,” the magistrate said.
The order said that after the trial was resolved on Darshan’s behalf, he had also sent a legal notice in May 2021, calling upon him to provide documentary evidence of the steps taken to perform due to industry. Still, no reaction was formulated.
The court said there is a need to prevent commercial exploitation under the appearance of such fair use.
“This complaint reveals information relating to an offense punishable under section 63 r/w section 51 r/w. 69 of the Copyright Act, 1957, which are cognizable. Therefore, such offense must be prevented. be sent for investigation on PF payable to MIDC police station under section 156(3) of CrPC. The concerned police station shall immediately register an FIR, then complete the investigation and file a final report.”
