Shark Tank India start-ups getting legal notices from the makers of the show!

A subscription-based tea brand, Dorje Teas which appeared in the second season of Shark Tank India has landed into trouble with a legal notice from the show. Founded by Sparsh Agarwal and Ishaan Kanoria, this start-up is known to bring authentic tea from the tea estates of Darjeeling. Sparsh recently shared on his LinkedIn that the makers of the show, Sony Pictures Network India have sent them a legal notice for copyright violation. Along with Dorje Teas, there are speculations regarding other Shark Tank brands receiving notices for running Meta and YouTube ads and even suspension of their Instagram accounts for using the show's clips as ads or otherwise. 

The post by Sparsh mentions, “We woke up to a number of legal claims made by the Sony Pictures Network India team sending us copyright violation notice for using clips from our own pitch on YouTube and Meta ads.”

Agarwal also said that Dorje Teas is not the only start-up company to have been served with the notice of copyright violation by Sony Pictures. He wrote, “We’re not the only ones - they’ve cracked down on each and every start-up that appeared on Shark Tank''.

Some brands even shared videos on their Instagram stating that their brand's accounts were suspended. Some people are speculating in the comments section that this might be due to the use of clips from Shark Tank, especially as running Meta and Youtube ads. "I am not sure how true that it is because of Sony and Shark Tank, it’s happened to a lot of people." read one comment. While another user said, "I saw a video which said anything with Shark Tank videos are all getting suspended."

“While I understand the copyright laws supporting it, I don’t understand why they would do this. After all Dorje Teas, and other companies like Skippi, Assembly, Perfora, Hoovu Fresh, Beyond Snack, Wakao Foods, Nasher Miles and so many others, are spending lacs every month to boost Shark Tank content, thereby giving free publicity and brand recall to the Shark Tank India brand,'' the post by Dorje Teas founder further read.

We reached out to brands mentioned in the video and received mixed responses from all of them. While some did not revert, some brands like WatchOut Wearables, who got funding of INR 2 crores from Anupam Mittal and Vineeta Singh at a valuation of INR 10 crore, as both provided $1 million in 10% equity and INR 1 crore loan with 15% interest said, "We have not received any legal notice from Shark Tank." Another brand P-Tal, a copper and brassware company also uses the show clips in their videos but did not get any notice. " We are all good and clean and everything is running normally, said Aditya Agrawal, CEO of P-Tal to Local Samosa.

The founder of Dorje showed his discouragement in a video saying, “Also Shark Tank Season 3 has been all about supporting a start-up ecosystem in India and building a new India. Magar iss tarah kese banega naya India (How will we build a ‘new India’ this way?)''

While we contacted Sony Liv – the over-the-top freemium streaming platform owned by Sony Pictures Networks India for further clarity on this case, they have denied commenting on this matter at this point in time.