In a new development in the ‘Varaha Roopam’ row, the Kozhikode District and Sessions court on Friday, November 25, returned the copyright infringement suit that was filed by Kerala-based music band Thaikkudam Bridge earlier, citing lack of jurisdiction. The Kozhikode district court in Kerala had passed an injunction order against the makers of Kantara in October, barring them from streaming the song ‘Varaha Roopam’ in prominent music platforms.
Popular independent music band Thaikkudam Bridge had filed a copyright infringement suit in September, noting that the song ‘Varaha Roopam’ from Rishab Shetty’s hit Kannada movie Kantara was allegedly plagiarised from the band’s intellectual property (IP) ‘Navarasam’. Though the Kozhikode court dismissed the case citing lack of jurisdiction on Friday, an injunction order passed in November by the Palakkad district court against the use of ‘Varaha Roopam’, is still in operation.
Sources from Thaikkudam Bridge told TNM that the band will be appealing in the High Court shortly. "The District Court in Kozhikode has returned our case for being presented before another court. The band is filing an appeal in the High Court immediately. Injunction order of the Palakkad Court issued against Hombale Films stays,” the source said.
In the song ‘Varaha Roopam’ from Kantara, the makers depict the beliefs and worship of Bhoota Kola and Daivaradhane which is practiced in coastal Karnataka. On the other hand, ‘Navarasam’ was an ode to Kathakali, and reflected on the commercialisation of the art form. Noting that the similarities between ‘Varaha Roopam’ and ‘Navarasam’ are a blatant infringement of copyright laws, the band stated in a Facebook post in October: “We would like our listeners to know that Thaikkudam Bridge is in no way or form affiliated with "Kantara". The unavoidable similarities between our IP ‘Navarasam’ and ‘Varaha Roopam’ in terms of audio is, therefore, a blatant infringement of copyright laws.”
The Kannada film Kantara hit the big screens on September 30. Following its successful run at the box office, the film was dubbed and released in Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi and Tamil in October. The Tulu dubbed version of the film hit the big screens overseas on Friday, while the Tulu version is slated for theatrical release on December 2 in India. ‘Varaha Roopam’ was replaced by a new version of the track when it started streaming on Over-the-top (OTT) platform Amazon Prime Video from November 24.
Although Kantara has largely opened to positive responses and has had a massive run at the box office, the movie backed by Hombale Films also received flak as the song ‘Varaha Roopam’ equated the native culture of Bhoota Kola with the Hindu god Vishnu’s incarnation, Varaha.