Plagiarism thrives in India

Team PGurus is proud to claim credit that its cartoon was used in The Accidental PM movie and has resulted in Modi getting a stunning victory in 2019 elections. Though we were aware of this fact before the elections, we decided to keep it a secret lest someone (ahem a three letter party) complain about it. Plus we did not want our readers (and there are millions) to get “influenced” by it. Here is the scene in the movie:

And here is the original cartoon:

See how the film unit carefully removed all our copyright plus watermark plus logo? They could have asked us and we would have happily agreed (in exchange for a line in the credits). Hopefully, in the future, we will have this kind of disclosure because in this day and age, plagiarism will be caught and the perpetrator (s) will be named and shamed.

Why is this habit widespread?

This is nothing new. For decades, movies have been inspired by novels or films from other countries. What is sad is the blissful ignoring of facts/ intellectual property rights and respect of ownership. In the West, there is quick justice available from the courts but alas in India, one has to wait forever. And the judges never award damages commensurate to the crime. And the judgment will be appealed in a higher court. And if you are lucky, your grandchild may be able to get the money.

Even if no royalties are given, it does not hurt to mention verbiage of the kind, “Inspired from Mrs. Doubtfire”. After all, that was what Kamal Haasan’s Chachi 420 was. The adaptation was superb, and more so because the Tamil version differs a bit from the Hindi one, tuned to the regional sentiments.

Here is a big shout out to India – please acknowledge others’ work. Your contribution will shine even more because you are enhancing an already proven product.