(SpicyIP’s regular “guest” poster and copyright expert Nikhil Krishnamurty brought the news to our attention — I’ve been a tad late in putting this up.)
A brief background —
- Our post last week reported that the Calcutta High Court had refused to grant an injunction in favour of Anandji, the music director of the original song, on the use of the reworked version in the newer film.
- However, the following day, i.e., Friday, the Calcutta High Court heard and granted a temporary injunction to the heirs of Prakash Mehra, the producer and lyricist of the original song, in a related suit. SpicyIP’s regular commentator and friend, Frequently Anon was quick to highlight news items which reported on this development which you can read here.
- Another commentator who claims to be a legal counsel involved in the matter has provided her take on the facts and the arguments in the case here.
Therefore, the injunction on the use of the song “Apni toh jaise taise” has gone through. Meanwhile, the film producer of the newer film Sajid Nadiawala, the producer of the newer film Housefull (2010), has added an interesting twist to the case — he has threatened to sue Saregama for defemation for having sold him unclean rights to a song. The reports add an interesting comment on how Saregama appears to be operating —
“According to the industry sources, Nadiadwala paid Rs 15 lakhs to Saregama for the rights. Says Nadiadwala, “I can’t disclose the amount. But it’s almost five times the money required to record a new song. But we liked the song and we wanted it to be part of Housefull. In any case, it’s easy to buy copyrights for songs from Saregama. They have a rate-card and all a producer has to do is consult that card and get any song he wants. In fact, we got Kaanta lagaa (originally sung by Lata Mangeshkar) from Saregama for my film Mujhse Shaadi Karogi and there was no problem at all.”
Nadiawala also refers to a 20-page tripartite agreement between himself, Saregama and T-Series (the music label that marketed the soundtrack for the new film, Housefull), which would be very interesting to read, and will shed more light on how the various parties claim to have rights to the song. We’re grateful for any tip-offs on that!
