In what is being considered a rare triumph for aspiring writers and film-makers, A.R. Murugadoss, who has directed actor Vijay’s Deepavali release, Sarkar , has agreed to add a 30-second card admitting to the fact that aspiring film-maker Varun Rajendran conceived the same idea several years ago.
Stating that the screenplay written by Murugadoss for Sarkar and Rajendran’s script titled ‘ Sengol ’ were similar, K. Bhagyaraj, president, South Indian Writer’s Association, said, “As a creator, A.R. Murugadoss said that he has worked hard on the film and felt it was unfair. But, I told him that the concept of the film was the same and Varun Rajendran had thought of the same concept 10 years ago. When I insisted that he should recognise the similarity, Murugadoss acceded to my request.”
For his part, Murugadoss released a video clarifying that film’s story, screenplay and direction will be credited to him only. “Bhagyaraj requested that we should encourage Varun Rajendran’s effort to have conceived a script with the same ‘spark’ (of a man losing his vote in the elections) even though there are no further similarities with
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This is the second time Murugadoss has faced allegations of intellectual property theft. Film-maker Gopi Nainar, who made
No safeguards
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He further said that there was a copyright infringement only when it could be proved that a second literary piece of work could exist without the first work. Tamil Film Producer Council’s treasurer S.R. Prabhu insists that the writers’ union should spread awareness about safeguarding copyrights.