Ananda Vikatan Productions Private Limited has sent a legal notice, on Wednesday, April 27, to Sun Television Network Limited demanding a compensation of Rs 100 crore for unauthorised use and commercial exploitation of the copyright of Tamil tele serial "Deiva Magal" produced by the former. The notice states that the teleserial was remade and telecasted as a Bangla teleserial "Debi".
According to the legal notice of copyright Infringement sent by advocate N Ramesh, under instructions from Ananda Vikatan Productions Private Limited which is represented by the Executive Director MV Kumar, based on an agreement in 2013 between both the parties, the Tamil teleserial "Deiva Magal" was telecast in Sun TV. “Though initially, the agreement was entered into for telecast of 78 episodes, later by several Letters of Amendment, a total of 1,466 episodes were telecast on Sun TV on payment of telecast fee,” the notice stated and said that Vikatan had invested almost Rs 100 crore in the project over five years between 2013 and 2018. Of this, around Rs 50 crore was paid to Sun TV in terms of telecast fee, it stated.
The notice also claims that after several issues, including that of IP (Intellectual Property) infringement, Vikatan had exited from producing or telecasting content with the Sun TV Network in October 2020. Further, stating that no kind of “assignment or license or permission or right etc., in the tele-serial Deiva Magal” was given to Sun TV, “more specifically NO right to make a remake a teleserial based upon same or substantially same story as contained in the original tele-serial Deiva Magal" was given. However, Vikatan alleged that without obtaining any right or license, Sun TV has been telecasting a remake of "Deiva Magal" as Bengali teleserial "Debi", in Sun Bangla channel, “based upon the same story, albeit with change of name of characters and modernization.” The notice further states that a total of 144 episodes of the teleserial were telecasted between September 2021 and February 2022.
Stating that this act “amounts to infringement” of the legal rights of Ananda Vikatan Productions Private Limited, they have sought to “cease and desist from committing the act of infringement”; to “account for and produce the revenue” made by the Sun TV network by “illegally remaking/airing these episodes of Bangla tele serial "Debi" on Sun Bangla TV, Sun Nxt oTT app as well as all their extensions on social, digital and all other media affiliates, associates and partners from all over the world up to today and for posterity”; and to remove all the work of Vikatan from the channels of Sun TV, including “Deiva Magal” and “Debi”.
Further, the notice also demands that Sun TV “declare in writing as to any other such transgression and copyright violations” committed by them with Vikatan’s programs and IPs “across languages, regions and channels and to account for revenues for the same” and to provide “written undertaking to not undertake such transgressions in future”. Vikatan has demanded a compensation of Rs 100 crore “for infringement of copyright in the work of our client, loss of revenue, reputation, business opportunity, etc., including the loss of revenue and profit calculated at Rs 1.5 crore”.
Ananda Vikatan Productions Private Limited has also demanded an affirmative response from the Sun TV Network Limited within a period of 15 days from the date of receiving the notice, the failure of which will lead to initiation of “all legal proceedings available to rectify this situation, including Civil and Criminal prosecution under the relevant law,” the notice read.