The Delhi High Court on Friday issued summons to British adventurer Bear Grylls, Executive Producer Tom Shelly, entertainment company Warner Brothers Discovery, television network National Geographic and over-the-top (OTT) platform Hotstar on a suit filed by an Indian writer, alleging copyright infringement over the show ‘Get Out Alive with Bear Grylls’.
The Single-Judge Bench of Justice Amit Bansal further issued summons to Warner Brothers Discovery, NBCUniversal Inc, Hotstar and Walt Disney on the suit filed by producer Arrmann Shharma, alleging that Grylls’ show had infringed his original copyright work ‘Aakhri Dum Takk’ (Till the Last Breath).
The High Court referred the parties to Delhi High Court Mediation Centre for January 17, after a request for mediation was made by Advocate Pravin Anand of Anand & Anand, who appeared for Grylls.
The Bench then fixed February 22 as the next date of hearing.
The script writer claimed that he had conceptualised and scripted the reality show in 2009.
Shharma said he approached Discovery with his copyrighted script in 2009. However, the channel said that the script did not meet its current programming and inventory needs, noted the plea.
It further said that in March, 2022, the Plaintiff, through one of his close friend, came to know that his copyright in the aforesaid original literary work was being infringed by the defendants herein and a show by the name of ‘Get Out Alive with Bear Grylls’ was being produced by defendant No. 1, 2 & 4 and getting broadcast on Disney+ Hotstar.
The Plaintiff said that at the time he pitched his script to Discovery, Grylls was working with Discovery. However, he later resigned and produced the allegedly infringing show with another channel named NBC, allegedly ‘citing’ it as his ‘original format/show’ developed with Defendant No.2 (an Executive Producer named Tom Shelly).
Shharma further alleged that the entire show was created and filmed in the manner as was drafted by him in his original copyrighted work.
The petitioner claimed that the locations mentioned in the said work were the same as that of the said infringing show.
The entry, interval, climax and the concept of the entire infringing show was based upon and filmed in the manner so narrated and formulated by the Plaintiff in his original copyrighted script, which was submitted to Defendant No 3 (Discovery), keeping in mind the defendant No 1 (Grylls) as host of the programme, it added.
The plaintiff was represented by Senior Advocate Sanjeev Anand, along with Advocates Imran Ali, Maneesh Saxena, Cherry Gupta, Dhriti Chhabra, Asim Naeem and Manpreet Kaur.