2009, The Washington Post MUMBAI, India -- For years, Indian producers have paid Hollywood the ultimate compliment: knocking off American films scene-for-scene and turning them into Bollywood blockbusters. Now, Hollywood is paying Bollywood a compliment of its own. Instead of ignoring the plagiarism, American moviemakers have begun suing their counterparts in India, a sure sign that this country's booming, $2.2 billion-a-year film industry has arrived as a global player. 'This is all a long time coming. It means India is no longer some country in the boondocks where no one cares what's going on,' said Anupama Chopra, a film critic in Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, which accounts for the B in Bollywood. 'Personally, I am really glad. It got to the point where I said to one director, `Where is your artistic skill?' And he looked right at me and said, `My skill is knowing what to steal.' ' Last week, 20th Century Fox accepted a $200,000 settlement from the Bollywood film producer it accused of copying its 1992 Oscar-winning comedy 'My Cousin Vinny,' better known here by its Bollywood version, 'Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai,' or 'This Guy Is Fearless.' Earlier this year, Warner Bros. took out public notices in the Times of India newspaper warning Bollywood against plans to make an Indian version of 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.' In an unexpected twist, the Delhi High Court threw out a Warner Bros. case against producers of the Bollywood film 'Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors' -- but only because the plot had more in common with Macaulay Culkin in 'Home Alone' than the boy wizard in Warner's Harry Potter franchise. The stepped-up vigilance for film copyright infringements follows a much-publicized round of buyouts and mergers between Hollywood and Bollywood, fueled partly by the desire to tap into each other's markets and by the growing popularity worldwide of Bollywood's escapist romps and emotional song-and-dance numbers. Warner Bros., Sony Pictures and 20th Century Fox have teamed up with Indian film studios to make several Bollywood movies. Disney invested nearly $200 million this year in one of Bollywood's biggest producers, UTV. At the same time, billionaire Indian industrialist Anil Ambani, whose wife was a Bollywood starlet, recently invested $825 million in Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks SKG Studios, allowing the cash-strapped Spielberg to break away from Viacom's Paramount Pictures. Indian film critics hope the landmark 'My Cousin Vinny' payout will encourage producers to find more experimental and original story lines. Traditionally, Bollywood has been pressured to produce proven moneymakers, especially since many films were bankrolled by Mumbai's wealthy underworld figures. But now, cleaner money is making its way into Bollywood. The out-of-court settlement has alarmed directors of other alleged Bollywood copies of American movies, such as 'Teree Sang,' (Hollywood's 'Juno'), 'Salaam Namaste' ('Nine Months') and 'Koi Mil Gaya,' which borrowed generously from Hollywood hits such as 'E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,' 'Singing in the Rain' and 'Rain Man.' Director Subhash Ghai, founder of Mumbai's Whistling Woods International acting school, said Bollywood filmmakers will still copy American plots but now will have to buy the rights. 'Sometimes I want to remake because I feel excited that I can make it better, with Indian values and song and dance,' Ghai said. 'There are only 36 plots in the world drama, and you can make 36,000 stories out of those. So stories don't change; science changes, times change and values change.' Some film industry analysts say it's hard to prove copyright infringement because many Bollywood films are almost compelled to feature song-and-dance numbers that confuse the flow of even the most carefully purloined narratives. 'Still, it kind of amazes me at times that it's so blatant,' said Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, an innovative Bollywood director whose recent film successes have featured original plots. 'There are so many great young Indian writers. Some are in the small towns. They just need to be encouraged.' (Begin optional add end) Bollywood is starting to gravitate toward films addressing the issues of the day, such as the tear-jerker 'Taare Zameen Par' ('Stars on Earth'), about a dyslexic child. Still, for many Indians without air conditioners who go to movie theaters for a break from the searing heat, questions about a film's authenticity are irrelevant. Even a plot stolen from Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Godfather' is spiced with enough choreographed street fights, megalomaniac villains and wet-sari scenes to make it entertaining for Indian moviegoers. A recent announcement that Bollywood wants to remake the testosterone-filled romp 'The Hangover' prompted a flood of supportive calls and text messages to an MTV India call-in show. 'Many audiences in small-town India have not seen the English movies. Now they get to see a great story in their own language,' said Anshi Bansal, 19, a university student in New Delhi. 'Plus, it has all the Indian songs and dances.' -- Special correspondent Ayesha Manocha in New Delhi contributed to this report. 