Miffed with the idea of his father, poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s works belonging to the general public owing to the Copyright Act, 1957, Amitabh Bachchan took to his blog to vent his anger. Calling it ‘rubbish’, he slammed the law which gives him the ownership of his father’s works for 60 years after the poet’s death, post which it belongs in the public domain.
Bachchan wrote:
“who did this intellectual legality .. at what context ..
i believe it initiated in 1957 or so .. and am angered by its audacity!
so what gets left as natural heir by Father Dr Harivansh Rai Bachchan, after his passing passed 60 years, belongs no longer to his domain or possessive copyright as willed .. but becomes for the entire Universe to tread, scratch, mutilate, use in commercial consideration on their own creative discretion .. ???
RUBBISH .. !” [sic]
Recommended
Asserting his ownership over his father’s literary works, Bachchan added that since he is genetically his father’s son, all the literary works should be willed to him. “He be willed to me of all that be in asset of his. His writings be his… his heir be me… his writings be mine … MINE! I shall not and will not allow its dilution to general public,” he wrote.
Harivansh Rai Bachchan was a noted Indian poet of the Nayi Kavita literary movement (romantic upsurge) of early 20th Century Hindi literature. He is best known for his early work Madhushala, in addition to the Hindi translations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Othello. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan for his contribution to Hindi literature. He died at the age of 95 in 2003.