Mumbai: A First Information Report (FIR) has been registered on court orders against Google, its CEO Sunder Pichai and five other employees of the company in an alleged copyright violation case on January 25. The MIDC police said the case was registered for allegedly uploading the movie “Ek Haseena Thi Ek Deewana Tha” on YouTube without a contract or consent from the movie’s producer and director.

The complainant has said he was following up with officials of Google and YouTube since 2017 but no action was taken to remove the movie from the platform. Producer-director Suneel Darshan has alleged that he incurred losses in crores as the film was streamed on a digital platform with lakhs of viewers.

Mumbai police spokesperson DCP Sanjay Latkar said the case has been registered based on the court order under the Criminal Procedure Code section 156 (3). Darshan said he filed a complaint before the court as Google did not abide by notices. MIDC police now plans to issue summons to Sundar Pichai (CEO of Google), Gautam Anand (Head of YouTube), Joe Grier (Grievance officer), and three Google employees Namrata Rajkumar, Pawan Agarwal, and Chaitanya Prabhu whose names are in the FIR. TOI is in possession of the FIR.

A Google spokesperson in India told news agency PTI that the company relies on copyright owners to notify it of unauthorized uploads and offers them “rights management tools, such as YouTube’s Content ID system that gives rights holders an automated way to identify, block, promote, and even make money from uploads of their content.”

“When a copyright holder notifies us of a video that infringes their copyright, we remove the content promptly in accordance with the law, and terminate the accounts of users with multiple copyright strikes,” the spokesperson added.

Andheri's additional chief metropolitan magistrate (22nd court) in its order on January 20 said the complainant has recorded illegal use of their film on YouTube for generating hundreds of millions of dollars towards advertising revenue earned through advertisements streamed before, during and after the film.

The complainant had made a CD of the alleged infringement which was produced in court in a pen drive. The court viewed it on a laptop and found a prima facie case of infringement of copyright. The magistrate noted that the complainant had also filed a civil suit before the District Court in Gurgaon.