The Dirty Picture in copyright tussle

A copyright tussle is being fought in the Bombay High Court between Balaji Films and Akshaya Productions on Vidya Balan’s blockbusterThe Dirty Picture. The court has restrained Akshaya Productions from releasing its Kannada movie titledDirty Picture: silk Sakkath Magaand the matter will be further heard in November second week. The order came on Balaji Motion Pictures Ltd’s appeal that the release of the Kanadda film would violate copyright law. Balaji Films said it had produced a film titled,The Dirty Picturein 2011 and it alone is the owner of all the intellectual property rights in the said underlying literary work and also in the title of the film, sources said. Balaji Films which filed its suit through law firm Naik, Naik & Co said it had "serious apprehension that in view of all the media reports, the story of the new film was also likely to infringe its copyrights in the literary work."