YouTube removes Shirish Kunder's Kriti due to copyright claim by Nepali filmmaker

Mumbai: It was just yesterday that director Shirish Kunder filed a legal notice and sought a written apology from Nepali filmmaker Aneel Neupane, who claimed that short film 'Kriti' was copied from his own short titled BOB.

Read: Shirish Kunder sends legal notice to Nepali filmmaker on plagiarism claims

Now, in an interesting turn of events, YouTube has taken down Shirish's film stating 'The video is no longer available due to copyright claim by Aneel Neupane'.

In an open letter, Aneel had stated that plot of Shirish's Kriti was lifted off his Nepali short film titled 'BOB'. Apparently, the film was ready in October 2015 and he uploaded it on Vimeo as a private video to share it with close friends. Aneel then released it on YouTube on May 12 this year.

In response to Aneel Neupane's plagiarism claims, Shirish filed a legal notice on June 27. He said that he completed shooting the film in February 2016 and after putting in several months into post-production process, it was published on June 22, 2016.

Shirish further added that he could not have obtained a copy of BOB. The filmmaker alleged that because the script of 'Kriti' was with a few people, it is possible that Aneel might have came across it and made BOB.

He has not only asked Aneel to refrain from making any oral or written comments on 'Kriti' but has also demanded that 'BOB' should be taken down from the internet immediately.

Advocate Rizwan Siddiquee who is representing Mr. Shirish Kunder and Muvizz.com states that "Mr. Aneel Neupane has already been served a legal notice and now the burden of proof is on him to substantiate his allegations and prove the genuineness of his claims. We will wait and see how genuine his claims are. Unfortunately, my clients film Kriti was pulled down as a result of the automated system of YouTube, which reacts to claims by any random person in the same way. It is in no way a reflection of copyright judgement. We have already written to YouTube, and YouTube has undertaken to reinstate my client's film titled Kriti on its esteemed channel, at the earliest. Now keeping in mind the larger interests of all viewers and considering the fact that my client's film has been viewed almost three million times within a short span of 6 days, my clients have in the meantime uploaded the said film on Muvizz.com, Dailymotion, Vimeo and Facebook."

'Kriti' features Manoj Bajpayee, Radhika Apte, Neha Sharma and Manu Rishi in a brief turn.