The Bombay high court has refused to grant interim relief to Pooja Bhatt-owned Fisheye Networks with regard to her contention that she has the copyright over the title of the soon-to-be-released film Thank You.
Fisheye Networks, owned by Pooja and her husband Munish Makhija, has filed a suit in the High Court, seeking stay to release of the film.
According to them, Fisheye had registered the title Thank You with the Association of Motion Picture and TV Programming Producers (AMPTPP) in 2005.
"Before registering the title, the association verifies with other associations whether the same or similar title has been registered before. When an attempt was made by UTV, (producers of `Thank You') to register the same title, Fisheye had complained to AMPTPP," Bhatt's suit contends.
But UTV says that it registered the title with Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA) in 2008, and when the dispute arose, it was settled by both the associations agreeing that the title is with UTV.
"Fisheye was aware since May 2005 that UTV was using the title `Thank You'. Prima facie there is no copyright as such in a title, hence the court would not be inclined to give interim injunction at this stage. The movie is slated for release this weekend and the producers have already spent Rs60 crore on the making of the film," justice DY Chandrachud observed in his order yesterday.
The court however kept the suit pending and has directed UTV to file reply by June 7.
Thank You, directed by Anees Bazmee, stars Akshay Kumar, Irrfan Khan, Suniel Shetty, Sonam Kapoor, Celina Jaitley and Rimi Sen.
