Mumbai: Renowned comedian Kapil Sharma’s ‘The Great Indian Kapil Show’ has run into legal trouble.
Days after the first episode of the fourth season premiered on Netflix, Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) India, the country’s oldest copyright licensing body, moved the Bombay High Court alleging copyright infringement by the comedy reality show, its producers and Netflix India.
The high court granted Kapil, his production company K-9 Films and Netflix two weeks to respond.
PPL has claimed in its petition that some popular Bollywood songs were used in the third season of the show without necessary licenses. Songs like M Bole To,
from the film ‘Munna Bhai MBBS’, Rama Re from ‘Kaante, and Subah Hone Na De from ‘Desi Boyz’ were played in different episodes of ‘The Great Indian Kapil Show’ season 3, which violated copyright law, the petition said.
According to PPL, the songs were used not only during filming but are also clearly audible in episodes later broadcast on the OTT platform. PPL has claimed this falls under the category of “public performance” and “communication to the public,” for which prior permission and licensing are mandatory.
The petition pointed out that three completed seasons, with multiple episodes, have already been aired, and Season 4 has started. It raises concerns that PPL’s sound recordings may be further exploited in the new season as every upcoming episode poses a potential infringement risk.
A notice was sent regarding the infringement, but a satisfactory response was not received, PPL said, requesting the court to prohibit use of unlicensed sound recordings and prevent such incidents from recurring in the future.