“CHATHURYA” BLACKMARKET SELLER WARNED AND RELEASED

‘Torana Music Box’ owner severely warned and released for selling “Chathurya” copied video tapes on the sly:

The producer of ‘”Chathurya” tele-drama actor Roger Seneviratna had filed action in courts a case against the Kapila Tissa Kumar Kotalawela, owner of the ‘Torana Music Box’ for selling under Torana label duplicated new copies of his tele-drama in the form of VCD’s. After a prolonged period of 7 years, from the year 2004 the accused was released after a severe warning last week and case was withdrawn after the accused had admitted that he had committed an offence.
The case was prolonged for such a long period as several actors and actresses were asked to come to courts to give evidence in this case and questioned each time the case was called up. There in addition had been several arguments with regard to the existing laws related to the intellectual rights of art creations. The lawyers of the accused, the owner of the ‘Torana Music box’ had at numerous occasions had argued that at no time his client had intentionally sold duplicated VCD tapes to clients to gain financial benefit.
His lawyers had argued that most of the time as a habit, new creations were collected by him as a hobby as he is closely connected to this business in order to educate himself on the subject which he has to be conversant on. In contrarily however new copies of ‘Chathurya’ tele-drama had been sold in the market under the “Torana’ label. Due to these reasons the case had been unnecessarily dragged on.
 However during the last hearing the owner of the ‘Torana music box’ had changed his original views and stance and had apologised and admitted the offence of duplicating the VCD tapes he had committed. He had said because of requests from his clients he may have had to adhere to their needs, hence had duplicated them, and hence on these grounds had pleaded to pardon and release him. Taking the above facts into consideration and after obtaining permission from the petitioner, the accused was released after giving a severe warning.
At an earlier instance in the year 2008, the owner of ‘Torana Music Box’ was also produced to courts for a case filed by the famous actor Joe Abeywickrema and his son for copying the tele-drama “Sakisanda eliya” and for selling the DVD’s for Rs 575/-each.