Raghu Ram became enraged and threatened to “sue their pants off” after MTV neglected to copyright the Roadies brand until Pakistanis did so.

The founder of MTV Roadies, Raghu Ram, shared an intriguing fact about the long-running and enormously successful reality show. Speaking about the Pakistani adaptation of Roadies, Raghu acknowledged that he wanted MTV to “sue their pants off” during an appearance on Tanmay Bhat’s YouTube channel. He found that the issue was that, despite four seasons, the channel had not obtained the copyrights for the Roadies name.

According to Raghu, he made the decision to copyright the brand on his own, but MTV did it before him. He made a joke about how much richer he would be if he could own the rights to the brand. Many years have passed since he left the show, but it went on. Now, a 20th season is planned for it. Raghu was asked if he was familiar with the Pakistani version of Roadies after seeing a clip from it on Tanmay’s channel. After acknowledging that he was aware of the program, he related a story about Waqar Zaka, its host.

He said, “He had a show called Living on the Edge. He rebranded it, calling it Pakistani Roadies, at the end of season four. Then I realised that these guys are co-opting the brand, so I went to my boss’ office and said, ‘Sue the pants off these guys’. He said, ‘We can’t’. I said, ‘Why not?’ And he said, ‘Because we haven’t copyrighted Roadies’.”

Raghu continued, “This was after four seasons. I was like, ‘What?’ I took it very personally, because it was my life’s work. I said, ‘I’ll copyright it myself, I want to sue this guy’. So I went and threatened them, and two days later, they copyrighted it. Imagine if they hadn’t. I would’ve copyrighted Roadies. I would’ve never spoken to any of you guys. Mereko zarurat hi nahi padti (I wouldn’t have had to).”

When MTV Roadies made their debut in 2003, it was portrayed as a significant advancement for Indian television. Contestants on the show were Varun Sood, Prince Narula, Ayushmann Khurrana, Rannvijay Singha, and others. It will shortly return for its twentieth season.