Plagued by plagiarism

In the last one year, Kollywood has been embroiled in several allegations of plagiarism. Apart from ripping off scenes from Hollywood and Korean films, Tamil filmmakers have either made films from one-liners that a few producers hear from aspiring filmmakers or have lifted the entire story from the script book. Since last year, biggies like Sarkar and 96 have faced charges of plagiarism. The latest film to come under the scanner of Writers’ Union helmed by K Bhagyaraj is Jayam Ravi’s Comali. Director R Parthiban’s assistant Krishnamoorthy sought the union’s help after his friends told him that the film is similar to his script. “I took my script to Writers’ Union and Pradeep was asked to submit the script of Comali. Bhagyaraj sir gave both the scripts a reading and agreed that they were the same,” he told DTNext. Krishnamoorthy was given the credit for the story in the title card of the film by the makers. “I want to put an end to such issues as no assistant director in future should go through 

this struggle,” he added.

The norm is that a filmmaker after registering his script with the union, narrates one-liners and bound scripts to several actors and sends a copy to ‘script agents’ in Kollywood, who sometimes ‘share’ the ideas with filmmakers who are either their friends or can convince a star to do a film for their production house.

Producer T Siva of Amma Creations, who has been in the industry for over three decades, said, “MGR in the song Thirudaadhe Papa Thirudadhe said, ‘Thirudanaai Paarthu Thirundhavitaal Thiruttai Ozhikka Mudiyaadhu’ (Until the thief realises his mistake, there will no end to robbery). We need laws that curb plagiarism in cinema. There shouldn’t be loopholes for the director who has copied the script to get away. Writers’ Union, however, has been fair in its decisions. If scripts are similar, the story is rewarded to the person, who has registered the script first.”

A few films like Nanban, a remake   of 3 Idiots and stories like Visaranai adapted from Lockup, a Tamil novel gave due credits to the original writers like Rajkumar Hirani and Chandran, respectively.  Writer Kabilan Vairamuthu, who is currently working on Indian 2 and Asuraguru among others, said that the problem begins with the identity of a director and a writer in Kollywood. “A director is the captain of the ship, who steers the film in the right direction from the time a movie starts rolling. In Tamil cinema there is a misconception that it is the director who writes as well as directs, which isn’t the case all the time. Most of the times, in a movie crew, the director and the writer need not the same person always. The respect and security for writers begins from this basic understanding even before registering a script.”

Film: Comali

Director: Pradeep 

Producer: Isari Ganesh

An aspiring director Krishnamoorthy approached the help of Writers’ Union and won the battle. Makers gave him the credit

Film: 96 

Director: Premkumar

Producer: Nanthagopal

Bharathiraja’s associate Suresh accused Premkumar of plagiarism but lost his case as his story wasn’t registered

Film: Sarkar

Director: Murugadoss

Producer: Sun Pictures

Writer Varun Rajendran sued AR Murugadoss for stealing his story and won the case and got the credit for the story

Film: Mersal

Director: Atlee

Producer: Thenandal Studio Limited

Producer Kathiresan had filed a case against Atlee saying that the film is a rip off from Rajinikanth’s Moondru Mugam for which he had the official rights