A Sri Lankan television producer and actor has filed an intellectual property rights case against a television station airing his teledrama without proper licensing and violating the Intellectual Property Act and is asking for Rs.3.5 million as compensation.
The plaintiff, Glenroy Anthony Soysa, more popularly known as Tony Soysa, filed his case in the High Court of the Western Province against Dialog Television (Pvt) LTD and Onair World Ceylon (Private) Ltd.
According to court documents, Mr. Soysa spent Rs.1.3 million of his own money in funding the entire production of a teledrama called 'Bambara Asapuwa'.
The Plaintiff stated that the teledrama constitutes an 'audiovisual work' in terms of the Intellectual Property Act No. 36 of 2003 and the ownership of the economic rights, including the broadcasting rights, in respect of the said teledrama, are vested in the Plaintiff as the Producer thereof, as specifically provided for in Section 14(5) of the said
Act, and as such, the Plaintiff's said right(s) in the teledrama "Bambara Asapuwa", are protected under the said Act.
In or around January 1993, the Plaintiff entered into an agreement with the owners/operators of MTV television channel in Sri Lanka, which is part of the Maharaja Organization, in order to license, inter alia, the broadcasting/telecasting rights in respect of the said teledrama to the owners/operators of the said MTV channel for a period of two years at the rate of Rs. 55,000 per episode. Upon the expiry of the two-year period, the master tapes of the teledrama were returned to the plaintiff by MTV.
The Plaintiff states that thereafter, he has not licensed and/or assigned and/or transferred and/or alienated the copyright and/or economic rights in respect of the said teledrama in any manner, to any other person up to date but that the master tapes were given to the stations by the person he had entrusted to safeguard them. |
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