The Madras High Court bench of Justice Abdul Quddhose rejected petitions filed by Netflix's Indian subsidiary, Los Gatos, who were seeking dismissal of the copyright infringement complaint submitted by Dhanush's Wunderbar Films against Vignesh Sivan, Nayanthara, and others, while also notifying the parties that Wunderbar Films' plea for an interim application would be heard on February 5, 2025.

The legal dispute between Dhanush and Nayanthara arose over a ₹10 crore controversy regarding the unauthorized use of a behind the scenes clip from the 2015 film ‘Naanum Rowdy Dhaan’ in Nayanthara’s Netflix documentary, ‘ Nayanthara: Beyond the Fairytale’. Dhanush, as the film's producer under Wunderbar Films, claimed the footage was used without proper authorization. Meanwhile Nayanthara reportedly argued that the footage in question was shot on personal devices during the making of Naanum Rowdy Dhaan and was already publicly available on social media.

In an attempt to withdraw the permission to sue, Netflix India contended that in accordance with the Letter Patent Act and the Copyright Act, permission was required before bringing a lawsuit against any defendant or any portion of the cause of action that occurred beyond the court's jurisdiction. It was contended that the plaintiff in this case had only been granted permission to suit the fifth defendant, Los Gatos of Netflix India, because the office was located outside the court's jurisdiction. As a result, he contended that the plaintiff should have obtained permission against all the defendants.

It was also argued that the plaintiff had not taken any action against an upload of a photo of Nayanthara and Vignesh Sivan from the film's sets back in 2020. It was stated that the plaint was filed a week after the documentary was released, indicating that there was no immediate urgency that would justify disregarding Section 12A (Pre-Suit Mediation) under the Commercial Courts Act. Because of this, it was argued that the plaint itself ought to be dismissed for violating Section 12A.

On the other hand, Senior Advocate PS Raman, representing Dhanush, proffered that anything created or filmed on the movie set belongs to the person who invested in it, which, in this case, was the Plaintiff . He stated that all materials from the movie set, including footage, are a collection of copyrights owned by the plaintiff and cannot be used or reproduced without his permission.

It was also the plaintiff’s stance that the cause of action arose only when the copyright infringement occurred, which was the unauthorized use of behind-the-scenes footage. An email was sent to the defendants after the trailer's release, asking them to stop using the footage. The lawsuit was filed only after the documentary's release, as the plaintiff needed to know whether the specific footage was used.

He noted that Nayanthara's contract, in exchange for valuable consideration, granted the producer the copyright for her appearance in the film, including costume and hairstyle done by her would belong to the producer, Dhanush.

While granting the application, Justice Abdul Quddhose acknowledged that a significant portion of the cause of action occurred within the court's territorial jurisdiction and notified the parties that Wunderbar Films' plea for an interim application will be heard on February 5, 2025.

Case Title: Los Gatos Production Services India LLP v Wunderbar Films Private Limited., A 6748 of 2024