Vipul Shah is reasonbly upset. Two years post the release of the director’s blockbuster director’s blockbuster Singh is Kinng, the movie is back in the eye of the storm for an unoriginal script.
The American Rights Management Company in the United States sued the distributor, Viacom 18, on the grounds of copyright infringement recently.
According to the lawsuit filed in New York District Court, the company claims that Singh is Kinng is a rip-off of the 1929 short story, Madame La Gimp, by Damono Runyon.
The complaint goes on to detail the similarities between Singh is Kinng and Runyon’s movie. The film was written and released as an original script by Anees Bazmi in 2008. Shah is predictably upset.
“I am baffled by this lawsuit. As far as I know, Aneesji (Bazmi) narrated an original script to me when we made it. We will fight the matter in court,“ says Shah adding that he will defend himself till the case is cleared.
“The fact that they (American Rights Management Company) are reacting two years later, and that too, over a DVD, which is rarely heard of, is surprising. I haven’t even heard of the movie before and secondly, if they had brought up the allegation in September 2008 when we released the movie, it would have still made sense,“ Shah says.
While he is willing to put his full faith in Bazmi’s work, he still states, “I don’t know what to believe. Aneesji is shooting in Canada at the moment and we’ll take affir- mative action and reply to them accordingly,“ he states.
Source: HT
