The Banjara Hills police booked a case against Park Hyatt in Hyderabad for copyright violation, after the management of the hotel allegedly played audio tracks and videos of Bollywood films without acquiring proper permission.
The police registered a case on the orders of a city-based court, after Mumbai-based Novex Communications, a music company, moved a local magistrate.
According to reports, Novex holds the copyrights for Zee Music and Yash Raj movies, and had alleged in its petition that they were neither paid a royalty, nor was their permission sought, before the 5-star hotel played the songs.
“The complainant alleged that the management played songs or videos from movies like Bar Bar Dekho, the rights of which were assigned to Novex,” the police was quoted as saying.
A case was booked under relevant sections of the Copyright Act, against Gayatri Hi-Tech Hotels Ltd.
In December last year, it was reported that buses in Tamil Nadu would soon stop playing movies or songs for passengers during a journey, following a meeting of bus operators with the state Intellectual Property Right Enforcement Cell (IPREC).
Special drives had also been conducted over the years, to curb piracy, and bus operators claimed that it was impossible to comply with copyright laws, even if they chose to screen movies legally
In September last year, the Hyderabad police arrested four persons, who had started a fake copyright monitoring organisation and allegedly duped over 100 job aspirants to the tune of Rs 3 crore.
According to the police, the accused had started their own fake government department titled 'Vigilance and Enforcement for Indian Copyrights' (VEIC) at Secunderabad, and appointed and 'authorised' several members to serve notices.
While initially starting of as a private establishment, they soon began claiming that they were a department of the government.
Promising jobs in the department, the accused also took large sums of money from unemployed youth.