Movie Ringtone Rights Fight Goes To Court

TOI: A very interesting fight on ringtone/telecom rights for a new movie, the first such dispute that I’ve heard of. Sarkar, a new movie starring Amitabh Bachhan (a remake of The Godfather), is a songless wonder but with a slick background score, is at the center of this controversy. Apparently, the film producers gave the “telecom rights” to the Indian mobile content company Mauj, and song rights to Super Cassettes Industries (SCI).
But SCI went ahead and sub-licensed the ringtone development to another company and started promoting it in TV advertising. Now Mauj is suing the two companies…
The concept and business of telecom rights itself is a product of recent years thanks to the rise in cellphone users and sophisticated handsets. Any decision in this case should set the tone for future agreements.
Stay tuned here, where else, for the latest on this…

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