HC Slaps Rs. 10 Lakh Fine on RGV, Sholay ‘distorted and mutilated’

High Court has imposed Rs. 10 Lakhs fine on filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma for “intentionally and deliberately” making a remake of 1975 released Sholay and violating the copyright that director Ramesh Sippy (of original film) had. HC further said that RGV purposely “distorted and mutilated the original work”. The court also said, that Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag has “distorted and mutilated the original copyright work”.

This comes in the wake of the complaint that was filed by Sascha Sippy, who is the son and grandson of producer of the original flick, Vijay Sippy and G.P. Sippy, respectively. As per him, the remake of Sholay, Aag, was “violative of exclusive copyright held by the Sholay Media and Entertainment Pvt. Ltd”. He further stated that the characters such as Gabbar, music, background score, dialogues and lyrics were misused in the remake.

Justice Manmohan Singh said, “The publicity material coupled with the impugned film, gives an overall impression that it is a remake of the film Sholay. The use of similar plot and characters in the impugned film coupled with use of the underlying music, lyrics and background score and even dialogues from the original film. Sholay amounts to infringement of copyright in the film Sholay”.

Source: dmcdn.net