Opinion: 'Arbitration Committee needed on copyright disputes', writes G Dhananjayan

MGR’s debut film Sathi Leelavathi (1936), written by SS Vasan (directed by Ellis R. Dungan) faced a legal battle with the producers of the film Pathi Bhakthi claiming the story belonged to them. In court, SS. Vasan argued that the inspiration for both the films was the popular novel ‘Danbury House’ written by Henry Wood. The case was dismissed. 

The recent cases of story ownership disputes include Shankar-Rajinikanth’sEn thiran, KS Ravikumar-Rajinikanth’s Lingaa and A.R. Murugadoss-Vijay’s Kaththi . In most of these cases, nothing concrete emerged. Similar fate may be in store for Bogan story dispute also. 

In the Dasavatharam story right dispute between Kamal Haasan and S Senthil Kumar the judgment stated (22.8.2007) “It is true that in both the stories, the hero plays multiple roles. But we find that the stories are conceptually different. A mere similarity of the idea cannot give a cause of action for breach of copyright.” 

A similar dispute occurred over Vikram’s Thaandavam (2012) directed by Vijay. In his  judgment (dated 26.9.2012) Justice K Chandru stated, “Merely because the story of the respondents having similarities will not automatically result in believing the applicant’s assertion. Hence the demand for the injunction of film’s release will 

stand dismissed.” 

The essence of both the judgments is that mere similarity of the idea cannot give a cause of action for breach of copyright. Various judgments in the Supreme Court have echoed this. So, these story right disputes will not stand a chance in  court unless the filmmaker has entirely copied scene by scene, the screenplay of the other person. A story idea or theme is not copyright protected, which must be understood by script writers who are making such allegations as there are just 7 universal stories in the world, only 7 plot points and 36 dramatic situations and everyone has to write their screenplays around these. 

What is the way then for these disputes on story ideas? 

Only a registered story-screenplay with the Writer’s Association must be accepted as copyrighted material by all associations. 

If the first condition is fulfilled, Tamil Cinema associations can form an Arbitration Committee on Stories (ACS) for each dispute, with two members from each disputing side and three members from the Arbitration committee comprising eminent members, going through the registered screenplay of both the parties and deciding on majority basis whether there is any copyright infringement and deciding either compensation for plagiarism of screenplay or dismiss all the claims in totality.