It’s high time, copyright infringement, permissions or acknowledgement are all taken seriously in the Indian entertainment landscape. In a fresh incident, the Bombay High Court has directed Amazon Prime Video to take down Telugu movie ‘V’ within 24 hours. The film, which was released in September last year has a scene where actress Sakshi Malik’s photograph is being used without her prior permission. Malik’s lawyers have called the incident, invasion of privacy & unauthorized use of private material. The filmmakers told the honorable court that they had been assured by a commercial agency to legitimately use the actress’s image to which the judge was of an opinion that any right-thinking motion picture producer would consider taking written consent from the person who is being featured, which was not the case here. The photograph in question had been posted by Sakshi Malik on her Instagram account from where it was lifted and used in the film’s sequence. Upon hearing the arguments in the case, the court ordered Amazon Prime Video to take down the films telecast across all versions regardless of the languages and sub-titles until the scene where the image is being used is deleted. The judgement clearly states that the scene needs to be deleted and pixelating or blurring of the image will not work. The case will be further heard on March 8.
