Producer-director Suneel Darshan has filed a complaint against Google, its CEO, Sundar Pichai, and five other employees (Gautam Anand, head of YouTube, Joe Grier, grievance officer, Namrata Rajkumar, Pawan Agarwal and Chaitanya Prabhu) of the tech giant over the alleged copyright infringement of his film, Ek Haseena Thi Ek Deewana Tha, on YouTube. According to Darshan, he had not sold his said film to anyone or released it, yet it was showing on YouTube with millions of views.
Suneel said, he had made a number of complaints to YouTube, owned by Google, since 2017 with regards to the illegal uploading of his film but they had all fallen on deaf ears. He claimed that Google (YouTube) was making a huge amount of money from advertisements and other sources through the exhibition of his content without having the copyright over the film. He was, therefore, forced to file a complaint. The police filed an FIR based on the Andheri (Bombay) additional chief metropolitan magistrate 22nd court’s order dated January 20, under the Criminal Procedure Code section 156(3). The court said, the complainant had recorded illegal use of his film on YouTube for generating hundreds of millions of dollars from revenue for advertisements streamed before, during and after the film.
Suneel Darshan had made a CD of the alleged infringement, which was produced in court in a pen drive. The court viewed it on a laptop and found a prima facie case of copyright infringement. The magistrate noted that the complainant had also filed a civil suit before the district court in Gurgaon.