Wednesday, August 27, 2008

A Comedy of IPRs

The so-called entertainment news today is that Warner Bros have sued some B-grade Indian producer over the title of a film called "Hari Puttar", because they are worried it will impact the business of their "Harry Potter" franchise. The lawsuit is based on the premise that Indian fans of Harry Potter and (sigh! where was she when I was in school?) Hermione would readily abandon the magical firangi movies in favor of a desi version, if one was available. So now there is a hoo-haa about whether the Indian producer is within rights to use a perfectly legit Hindi word "Puttar" that has no similarity in meaning to the English word "Potter". Bombay High court, already laboring under a 200 year backlog of genuine cases, will have to decide whether the lawsuit is a publicity gimmick or whether Warner's IPR has been "snitch"ed.

The plot, as I understood it, is that a 10 year old kid wishes for his family to disappear. His wish is promptly granted and he is left "home alone" to battle two bungling goons who are trying to get their secret microchip back from a toy in the kid's possession. How he foils their plans is the rest of the film. It stars my favorite actors as the goons, so I'm praying it's not all bad.

Most news articles don't even mention the possibility of this film being a rip off of anything but the Harry Potter stories. Either Mr.Purriiie is very very smart or most Indian journalists were born after 1990. Wonder if sundry blog posts will result in Mr. John Hughes exchanging places with brother Warner to sue the lucky Mr.Purrieee?

Oh hell, even the BBC News got it wrong. Pardon me for sneering only at lazy Indian newsies.

After all, the ever-alert media has, thankfully, given wider column-space to this historic lawsuit instead of boring us with the tale of a family left alone without even a home, under the benevolent shade of the Lotus.

6 comments:

Toonfactory said...

Sir Adbhut post hai..have seen rushes of Puttar film & its CRAP! I expected Home Alone creators would sue them magar Kahani Mein kaafi funny sa twist le aaye ye Warner Bhai Log..as far as "a family left alone without even a home, under the benevolent shade of the Lotus." is concerned our media is known for ignoring topics like these for some known unknown reasons.. :)
PS: word verification hata diya gaya hai..aap bindaas ho kar jitni marzi utni comment maar sakte ho ;)

Toonfactory said...

Have added a special Mehmood post for you..have a look at the filmy blog :)

Mama - Mia said...

who wants to read about the poor and the homeless? they have been there for ever and ever!

bappi lahiri winning a lawsuit against truth hurts or warner bros suing the wrong movie (and helping its publicity) are so much more interesting and fun!

great post always!

cheers!

abha

Unknown said...

its not the mistake of the press alone. even we are callous

G said...

hey! you never mentioned you write blogs too! this one was fab and as entertaining as your talk! Keep it coming!

Swati said...

You have been awarded ! Check my space :)