Mirzapur Season 2 in troubled waters?Here’s the full story.
Surendra Mohan Pathak, a mystery writer issued a legal notice to the makers of Mirzapur Season 2 alleging misrepresentation of his novel “Dhabba”
Not that big a fan of watching web series, this bloke recently got acquainted with one titled “Mirzapur Season 2” running on Amazon Prime Video, one of the well known OTT platform. The titled web series has been in limelight for its story and the performances of its cast. The remaining notability, craze and hype amongst the viewers with respect to the series has been garnered through plethora of memes being floated on all across the social media platforms…as is the trend!.
A fit case for moral rights violation?
Sex and eroticism are two things which sell like anything and in no time are able to grab the attention of masses in the country. The aim of this post is not to raise any question or challenge any of the content being shown on any of the platforms. However the makers of movie/web series (“cinematographic work”) need to ensure that in order to make their work appealing or eye catching they do not end up causing legal injury to any of the third party work referred or used in their creation.
The Dispute:
The renowned author and writer Surendra Mohan Pathak has issued a demand letter to the makers of “Mirzapur 2" alleging that his novel “Dhabba” has been misrepresented to have pornographic content. One of the characters of the series named Satyanand Tripathi is being shown to be reading the novel “Dhabba” with a voiceover which has nothing to do with the novel.
The writer while sharing the letter sent to the Excel Entertainment (“creators of Mirzapur Season 2") stated that his novel has been mischievously represented as “sheer porno” while making an attempt to tarnish his reputation as an author.
Moral Rights as a concept under Copyright Act, 1957
Moral rights under the Copyrights Act, 1957 (“The Act”) have been referred to as Author’s Special Rights under Section 57 of the Act. Every author has a right to preserve and protect its work, which it exercises through moral rights. Moral rights are inalienable rights which include “right to paternity” and “right to integrity” and are enjoyed in addition to the copyright. To put it simply, the idea behind conferring moral rights on creators/authors is to place the authors at an elevated position (Sajeev Pillai vs Renu Kunnapalli) and to empower them to restrain any third party from making any kind of modification which brings down the integrity of the author’s work and as a consequence tarnishes their reputation.
Moral rights in India were first time discussed in the case of Amarnath Sehgal vs Union of India wherein the court while recognizing Article 6bis of Berne convention stated that the right to assert authorship in any work also includes the right to object to its mutilation or distortion if the same is prejudicial to the honour and reputation of its author.
Points to be noted!
- Right to paternity: Can also be referred to as “identification right” or the right to have the authors name on his work.
- Right to integrity: Right to raise objection to any kind of modification brought to the author’s work if the same is derogatory to the reputation of the author or degrades the work in any manner.
It is interesting to note that any kind of assignment or transfer of any economic right through a contract cannot override or undermine the effect and spirit of Section 57 of the Act. The said statement can be corroborated by the ruling of the Delhi High Court in the case of Mannu Bhandari vs Kala Vikas Pictures Pvt Ltd wherein the court observed that
Section 57 lifts authors’ status beyond the material gains of copyright and gives it a special status.
The court while quoting the provision stated that even if the author (Mannu Bhandari) permitted certain modification to her book while converting the same into a motion picture, the same cannot go on to the extent of mutilating or distorting her original novel.
Applying the above principles to the present gamut of facts, the writer Surendra Pathak was well within his rights to issue a letter to the makers of the series to remove the clips distorting his work which can be detrimental to his interests. The courts have time and again stated that in the wake of commercialization and deriving profits out of any work, the reputation and honor of the authors should not be compromised. Therefore the apprehension of the loss of reputation is a real one because once any web series or any cinematographic work is released, any amount of money or compensation would be too less to restore the damage of reputation and goodwill earned by any author over a period of time.
Damage Control:
Realizing the blunder and in order to pacify its effect, the makers took no time in releasing a statement apologizing for the incident and agreeing to the demands of the writer.
The slow but steady shift from the theatres to floating content on OTT platforms like Amazon Prime, NetFlix, Zee5 etc since last one year is quite evident. The craze amongst the audience encourages the creators to bring their work in a form which is accessible to the audience as easily as possible.
The copyright issues are nothing new for the industry, but its interesting to see that rather than dragging the matter to court the production houses and the creators have started recognizing the rights over any work created by third party. As of now the present dispute looks to have reached the stage of an amicable settlement. Lets wait for the next one!.
The writer can be contacted on harshit9281@gmail.com
