The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court on November 24, 2014 reserved its order on a writ petition that sought a stay on the release of Superstar Rajinikanth’s movie “Lingaa”.
Film maker, K.R. Ravi Rathinam, filed a case in the Madurai Bench over copyright issues, alleging that the upcoming Rajnikanth-starrer movie ‘Lingaa’ is actually based on his script. He contended that the script is a copy of his yet-to-be-released Tamil film titled ‘MulaiVanam 999’. The petitioner had already uploaded the entire story of his movie on YouTube on February 24, 2013. The respondents rejecting his contention stated that posting a video on YouTube of an unreleased film does not constitute publication and there can be no copyright over unpublished work.
Superstar Rajnikanth also filed a counter affidavit contending that the action of the petitioner has tarnished his image. Moreover he stated in his affidavit that he believed that the theme/story of “nationalization of rivers” is very common, and no one can have copyright over ideas or themes and that many movies have already been made on such a theme.