Madras High Court Stays Re-Release Of Kamal Hassan Starrer ‘Guna’ Amidst Copyright Infringement Allegations

Madras High Court Stays Re-Release Of Kamal Hassan Starrer ‘Guna’ Amidst Copyright Infringement Allegations

Issues notices to Pyramid Audio India, Evergreen Media and Prasad Film Laboratories

The Madras High Court has stayed the re-release of ‘Guna’, the 1991 Tamil movie starring Kamal Hassan, amidst copyright infringement claims.

The bench of Justice P Velmurugan granted an ad-interim injunction on an application filed by Ghanshyam Hemdev while noting that the balance of convenience favored Hemdev. It issued notices to the respondents, Pyramid Audio India Pvt Ltd, Evergreen Media Pvt Ltd, and Prasad Film Laboratories.

The judge stated, “The applicant/plaintiff has made out a prima-facie case for grant of ad-interim injunction. The balance of convenience and irreparable hardship have also been established by the applicant.”

Hemdev submitted that he was in the business of financing, production, and aggregation of copyrights in cinematographic films. He acquired the negative rights of 10 Tamil cinematographic films (including Gunaa) from an individual N Rathnam, who acquired the world negative copyright.

He added that while acquiring the world rights to the film, Rathnam was given the sole and exclusive rights with commercial and non-commercial, theatrical and non-theatrical copyrights of distribution, exhibition, and exploitation of the movies.

Thereafter, Rathnam had assigned the rights to Hemdev, who obtained the laboratory confirmation for the film.

Hemdev added that in June 2024, he learned that the defendants were attempting to re-release the movie in Tamil Nadu. Though he approached the Film Distributors Association, requesting intervention, the defendants re-released the movie on 05 July 2024 by producing a false and concocted agreement.

He claimed that the defendants were unauthorizedly infringing his copyright and requested the court to temporarily injunct the defendants and their men from exhibiting and exploiting the film’s copyrights.

The court, while allowing his application, ordered correspondingly.