MUMBAI: Moser Baer Entertainment has filed a case against home video rental web portal Seventymm at the Bombay High Court alleging the company of organized rental piracy. The hearing of this case is on 27 January.
Moser Baer is seeking Rs 500 million (Rs 50 crores) as compensation towards the violation of the exclusive home video rental rights of 800 – 900 movies, which have been offered by Seventymm to its members since two years.
When contacted by Businessofcinema.com Seventymm COO Subhankar Sircar confirmed that he received a legal notice from Moser Baer and refused to comment as the matter is subjudice. When queried whether the movies in point are still being offered or have been pulled out from the site, Sircar refused to comment.
However Moser Baer Entertainment CEO Harish Dayani says, "Seventymm approached Moser Baer for a license to distribute its movies, but the monetary terms were not acceptable to us and nothing materialized. Therefore this is nothing but organized rental piracy and has caused serious damage to our bottom line distributors. We sent a notice to Seventymm six months ago, to which they did not respond, hence we filed a case in the court and are seeking a compensation of Rs 50 crores."
Moser Baer has a collection of over 10,000 titles in its library. It recently acquired the libraries of Sony BMG and UTV Motion Pictures. Some of the movies being offered by Seventymm until recently included Golmaal Returns, Kismat Konnection, Halla Bol, Bhoothnath, Shaurya and A Wednesday amongst many others, which were pulled out from the site after a court case was filed against the company.
