The latest development in the copyright dispute between the makers of short films ‘Kriti’ and ‘Bob’ is discussed in this post. To know more about this copyright dispute which was published in an earlier post, please click here.
The turbulence between Shirish Kunder’s ‘Kriti’ and Aneel Neupane’s ‘Bob’ finally seems to have reached its climax with the comeback of KRITI on YouTube. Neupane’s allegations of copyright infringement had infuriated Kunder, who claimed that there was no scope for any such copy and Neupane was attempting to defame him through false allegations.
Shirish Kunder turned the tables for the BOB film-maker, Aneel Neupane, by accusing him of defamation and plagiarism. It was affirmed by the producers of KRITI that its shooting had commenced well before the release of BOB on YouTube. They had also stated that they shared no connection with the ‘close group of friends’ of the Nepali filmmaker, amongst whom the film was privately circulated. They alleged that as the similarities between the two movies had been so intricately brought forward by Neupane, it was more likely that BOB was actually copied from KRITI and now Neupane was attempting to clear the air by bringing down Kunder’s KRITI. This ‘copyright war’ between the two movies, had prompted YouTube to bring down both KRITI and BOB.
Reacting to YouTube’s decision to bring down KRITI on June 29, 2016, Kunder sent a legal notice to Neupane demanding solid proof for the copyright infringement allegations and had also sought for an unconditional apology.
However, the makers of BOB failed to comply with the requirements and demands of the 15-day notice period by not furnishing sufficient proof supporting their allegations, within the said time period. YouTube took this failure as a concrete indication of the falseness of Neupane’s copyright infringement claim; stimulating it to finally resume the online viewing of KRITI on July 15, 2016. While BOB still remains to be taken down from YouTube, KRITI has already crossed 3 million views and 33 thousand likes.
This touch of success has however not mellowed down the furry of the makers of KRITI towards Neupane. It is reported that the producers of KRITI are seeking 5 crore compensation for the damages caused due to the false allegations of copyright infringement in a lawsuit against Neupane. Also, the triumph in this copyright conflict and the following positive response of the viewers has motivated Kunder and the producers, Muvizz.com, to initiate future plans for KRITI, to evolve it into a complete feature film or web series.
Sources : 1
Authored by Apoorwa Shankar Iyer
Image Source/ Attribution here , Governed BY Creative Commons License CC0 1.0
