Alphabet CEO booked for breaching a Bollywood film’s copyright act

Alphabet Inc’s Google CEO Sundar Pichai and five others from the tech company were booked over alleged copyright infringement of a Bollywood movie on YouTube.

Along with Pichai, Gautam Anand (head of Youtube), Joe Grier - Grievance officer and four employees of the tech giant are among the officials named in the FIR.
Along with Pichai, Gautam Anand (head of Youtube), Joe Grier – Grievance officer and four employees of the tech giant are among the officials named in the FIR. Photo courtesy: Google

Bollywood filmmaker Suneel Darshan in his complaint against Pichai said that he has not sold the rights of his 2017 film 'Ek Haseena Thi Ek Deewana Tha' to anyone or released it, however, it is running on YouTube with millions of views.

He claimed that the content has been "blatantly" used with over a billion infringements and a huge amount of money is being made by the illegal uploading of his film.

"I hold Sundar Pichai responsible since he represents Google. I have tracked over 1 billion views of my 'Ek Haseena Thi Ek Deewana Tha' have been recorded. No action has been taken despite this concern being raised with the company," Darshan said.

Along with Pichai, Gautam Anand (head of Youtube), Joe Grier – Grievance officer and four employees of the tech giant are among the officials named in the FIR.

The film 'Ek Haseena Thi Ek Deewana Tha' was written, produced and directed by Suneel Darshan. It had Shiv Darshan, Natasha Fernandez and Upen Patel in lead roles.

Sundar Pichai has been recently conferred India's third-highest civilian award Padma Bhushan.