Copyright violation of Shahid’s snaps

Shahid Kapur’s photos on a fan’s website (www.shahidonline.net) have landed the site in a legal imbroglio.

OK! India magazine has dashed off a copyright violation notice to the webmaster for using the star’s photographs that were exclusively shot for the February issue.

As soon as the notice reached the website, the Jab We Met actor’s images were removed and now it has gone blank. The website has also sent an apology letter to the mag for doing so.

Says Sonali Velinker Kamat, editor, Ok! India, “His pictures were scanned from the magazine and put up on the website. In some of the pictures, the text accompanying it was clearly visible.”

She adds, “It is a huge process to get a star to do an exclusive photo shoot. It takes hours to shoot and months of planning. As the country’s leading photographers shoot them, they are considered the better pictures of the stars. There are several requests from the actors to use the snaps for their publicity but we don’t part with it as OK! India has the exclusive copyrights.”

Shahid’s snaps were shot by Daboo Ratnani at the Dilip Chhabria Design Studio.

Earlier Mallika Sherawat had desired to use her photographs that appeared in the glossy on her website.

“But we had to say no. Only with permission, could she put up the cover of the mag on her website. There was also a request from Akshay Kumar’s front for his pictures that appeared in the mag. But these are pictures you will not see anywhere else and belong to OK!,” points out Sonali.

Blatant copyright violation of the pictures of the stars is a big issue in the country. “No one seems to bother here unlike the West, where violation of copyright can get you into a legal mess.”

The mag’s issue which had the wedding pictures of basketball star Tony Parker and actress Eva Longoria could not be used in hoardings as that was the deal struck by the stars for exclusive pictures to OK! even after being paid millions for it.

Adds Sonali, “It is rare here for anyone to even apologise, at least this will be an eye-opener for the rest to refrain from doing so.”