M/S. Super Cassettes Industries Private Limited and Ors vs Nandi Chinni Kumar and Ors
Bench: Honourable M.S.Ramachandra Rao, Honourable T.Amarnath Goud
Court: High Court of Telangana
Civil Miscellaneous Appeal Nos.355, 356, 357 and 358 of 2020
CMA.No.355 and 356 of 2020
Date of Judgment:19 October 2020
Act: Copyright Act, 1957
Facts of the case: The plaintiff, a music record label and film production company filed a suit against a former gangster turned football player. The defendant no.1 gave film rights of his story to the plaintiff who registered the film script with the title ‘Slum Soccer’ with the Telangana Cinema Writers’ Association. However, soon after registering the film script for Slum Soccer, the plaintiff read about a film titled ‘Jhund’, which was based on the life story of the defendant no.2 who was defendant no1’s coach. Although the film Jhund was based on the life story of the defendant no.2, the story of the film included the story of the defendant no.1. The plaintiff then informed defendant nos. 1to 12 about the previous agreement and warned them that they would be liable for copyright infringement. The plaintiff filed a suit seeking a perpetual injunction prohibiting defendant nos. 3 to 12 from exhibiting or broadcasting the movie Jhund in all the theatres in India and abroad. In response to the suit, the defendants stated that no case had been made out by the plaintiff for grant of injunction against them and other defendants from proceeding with the release of the film titled ‘Jhund’. Further, defendants 3, 5, 6 and 7 also contended that it is possible to make a movie only on the coach, the 2nd defendant, without having the character of the 1st defendant, the alleged Don turned Footballer who captained the Indian Slum Soccer Team in the Slum Soccer World Cup.
Judgement: The court observed from the teaser of the film ‘Jhund’ that there are distinct similarities in the plot, depiction and the life and story of the protagonist of the film as with the registered script of ‘Slum Soccer’ of the plaintiff, and that the defendants have not specifically denied any of these aforementioned allegations of the plaintiff with regard to similarities between the film scripts. The court held that there was a strong prima facie case of infringement against the defendants and opined that an interim injunction should be granted in favour of the plaintiff.
Disney Enterprises, Inc. and Ors. vs. Kimcartoon. to and Ors.
Coram: Honourable Mr Justice Rajiv Shakdher
Court: High Court of Delhi
CS(COMM) 275/2020 & I.A. No.6089/2020
Date of Judgement: 27/05/2020
Act: Copyright Act, 1957
Facts of the case: The plaintiffs in this matter were companies incorporated in the United States of America involved in the business of creation, production and distribution of motion pictures and cinematograph films. The defendants in this lawsuit included several rogue websites that had provided users with free access to pirated content. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) were also included as co-defendants by the plaintiffs, along with several ISPs (Internet Service Providers). The Plaintiffs filed a law suit against the defendants for streaming original and copyrighted content created by the Plaintiffs, without acquiring any prior authorization from the Plaintiffs. After reviewing the list of the infringing websites submitted by the Plaintiffs and the content made available on those websites, the court opined that the Defendants were infringing on the plaintiffs’ copyrights.
Judgement: The court restrained the Defendants from hosting, streaming, reproducing, distributing, making available to the public and/or communicating to the public, or facilitating the same on their websites through the internet in any manner whatsoever, any cinematograph work, content, program or show in which the Plaintiffs owned copyrights. Further, the court granted an interim injunction in favour of the Plaintiffs to ensure that the original content created by the Plaintiffs was protected, and directed the Plaintiffs to file the necessary applications before the court in case of any further infringement by these websites. The court ordered the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) to issue necessary directions/notifications to various ISPs in general to block access to the defendants’ websites.
Vinay Vats vs. Fox Star Studios India Pvt. Ltd. and Ors
Coram: Honourable Mr Justice c. Hari Shankar
Court: High Court of Delhi
I.A. 6351/2020 in CS(COMM)
Date of Judgement: 29 January 2020
Act: Copyright Act, 1957
Facts of the case: The plaintiff, a writer filed a law suit against a production house claiming to be the original scriptwriter and owner of the copyright of the script of the film titled ‘Tukkaa Fitt’, and alleged that the film ‘Lootcase’ produced by the Defendant had the same story as the film Tukkaa Fitt produced by M/s. AAP Entertainment Limited. Though the production of the film was completed in November 2012, the film got delayed as one of the producers died. The film Lootcase was set to release on 31st July 2020. However, the Plaintiff chose to file a lawsuit for the grant of an interim injunction mere days before the release of the film, despite the film’s trailer launched almost a year before the release date. The Defendants stated that the film’s storyline was a very common one, which had been previously used in several films. Further, the Defendants stated that according to the documents submitted by the Plaintiff, the producers of the film Tukkaa Fitt had paid a certain sum of money to the Plaintiff to purchase the script of the film and all the rights subsisting therein. Due to this, the extent of the Plaintiff’s rights over the film’s script needed to be clarified.
Judgement: The court observed that copyright can only be granted for the expression of an idea and not for the idea itself, and that an idea can be expressed in several forms. According to the court, the most reliable way to determine whether two films were the same in terms of the execution was to see the audience’s reaction to both the films. If the audience found any similarities between the films, then the next step was to ascertain the extent of such similarity. The court opined that the balance of convenience lay in favour of the Defendant. The court was not convinced with the Plaintiff’s claim of becoming aware of Lootcase’s release only recently, since the media had been covering the film for a year before the release date. Further, the court stated that by filing a lawsuit only a few days before the film’s release, the Plaintiff tried to compel the court to expedite the proceedings to get an interim injunction to halt the film’s release. The court, therefore, decided in favour of the Defendant and dismissed the Plaintiff’s plea for the grant of an interim injunction.
M/s. Indian Record Manufacturing Co. Ltd. vs. Agi Music Sdn Bhd, Illaiyaraja and M/s.Unisys Info Solutions Private Ltd.
Coram: Honourable Dr Justice G. Jayachandran
Court: High Court of Madras
C.S.No.296 of 2016 & O.A.No.338 of 2010
Date of Judgement: 13/02/2020
Act: Copyright Act, 1957
Facts of the case: The plaintiff in this matter was a renowned music company engaged in the production, distribution and sale of music albums in various forms. Defendant no.2 was a famous music composer, who, over the years, had composed music for several South Indian films. Since this suit was contested solely by Defendant no.2, Defendants no.1 and 3 remained ex-parte. The subject matter of this dispute was the music that Defendant no.2 had composed for many films produced by the Plaintiff, by virtue of which Defendant no.2 claimed to be the author these musical compositions, and was in the process of selling the copyrights to Defendant no.1. The Plaintiff was also made aware of the same, following which it filed a copyright infringement suit against Defendant no.2., claiming that it had acquired the copyright and other rights subsisting in the musical compositions from the respective producers of the films, as they were the first owners of such copyright. The court accepted the Plaintiff’s copyright ownership claims in the musical compositions and stated that, since the producers of the film had commissioned the musical works composed by Defendant no.2, the producers were the first and rightful owners of such compositions. The court emphasized the definition of the term ‘cinematograph film’, as defined in the Copyright Act, and stated that it is the producer who puts together several elements to make a complete film. Therefore, only a producer was legally vested with the authority to assign to third parties, the individual rights in each of these separate elements.
Judgement: The court observed that Defendant no.2 was unable to furnish the necessary evidence to support the claims of authorship and subsequent ownership over the musical compositions. The Plaintiff on the other hand was able to satisfy the court by submitting the agreements between the plaintiff and the respective producers to substantiate the claims of ownership of copyright made by the Plaintiff. As a result of this, the order was decided in favour of the plaintiff, and the claims of Defendant no.2 were dismissed.
Star India Private Limited vs Union Of India
Coram: Honourable Justice S. Muralidhar
Court: High Court of Delhi
W. P. (C) 879/2010
Date of Judgement: 30 September 2011
Act: Copyright Act, 1957
Facts of the case: This suit dealt with the issue of copyright infringement by various streaming websites that continue to provide access to illegal content. In this present matter, the Plaintiff, which was in the business of producing and distributing films, filed a copyright infringement suit against multiple defendants, who ran different streaming websites, for illegally streaming the plaintiff’s film ‘Mission Mangal’. The Plaintiff also included as defendants in the suit, those departments of the Government of India, which issue notifications concerning blocking of the impugned websites. Before the release of the Plaintiff’s film ‘Mission Mangal’, the Plaintiff had conducted a private investigation into the Defendants’ websites and submitted the findings of these investigations as evidence before the court. The Plaintiff had confiscated infringing materials, including content which was made available on the Defendants’ websites for downloadingand viewing, without the required authorization from the plaintiff, thereby making such content infringing. The evidence presented to the court contained screenshots of all the Defendants’ websites that showed the Plaintiff’s film being made available on the defendants’ websites for downloading and streaming, before the official release date of the film. The Plaintiff also identified those internet service providers (ISPs), who were providing services to the Defendants’ websites.
Judgement: The Court ordered the internet service providers to block access to the Defendants’ websites and also ordered the suspension of the Defendants’ domain names by the corresponding authority. Further, the court directed the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to issue a notification to any website that the Plaintiff notified to be illegally transmitting or broadcasting the cinematograph film ‘Mission Mangal’ in any manner. Since the court did not receive any response from the majority of the Defendants to its notices, the order was decided in favour of the Plaintiff, granting the injunction along with damages deemed appropriate by the court.
Giant Rocket Media And Entertainment Pvt. Ltd vs Ms Priyanka Ghatak And Ors
Coram: Honourable Mr Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw
Court: High Court of Delhi
IA No.18527/2019 (of plaintiff u/O XXXIX R-1&2 CPC) & IA No.82/2020 (of D-1&2 u/O XXXIX R-4 CPC)
Date of judgement: 7th January 2020.
Act: Copyright Act, 1957
Facts of the case: This case involved three defendants, wherein, Defendant no.1 was a scriptwriter, Defendant no.2 was a production house and Defendant no.3, was a retired Joint Commissioner, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the author of the book “CBI Insider Speaks: Birlas to Sheila Dikshit”, from which, chapter no.7 was to be adopted by the Plaintiff into a web-series. The Plaintiff claimed that Defendant no.2 along with help of Defendants no. 1 and 3, had infringed upon the Plaintiff’s idea to adapt the aforementioned chapter no.7 into a web-series, for which the Plaintiff had previously sought the rights from Defendant no.3. Chapter no.7 from the book was based on the true story of the murder of Syed Modi, who was an eight-time national badminton champion. The court stated that the primary issue, in this case, was whether the chapter itself, as written by Defendant no.3, fulfilled the originality of expression requirement of the Copyright Act. In the court’s opinion, since the story covered in chapter no.7 was a true story, it was already part of the public domain due to which it may not have qualified as copyrightable work.
Judgement: The court, in this case, held that, since the story mentioned in chapter no.7 was not fictional, and was merely the narration of the crime and its prosecution, the Plaintiff did not have sufficient grounds to claim exclusive rights over the contents of chapter no.7 of the book written by Defendant no.3. Each of the scripts belonging to the Plaintiff and Defendant no.2, respectively, narrated their versions of this true crime story. In light of the aforementioned facts, the court concluded that, while the Plaintiff did not have a prima facie case for interim relief, Defendants no. 1 and 2 also did not act fairly. In addition to this, the evidence provided was insufficient to show that the balance of convenience lay with the Plaintiff. As a result of this, the court dismissed the Plaintiff’s appeal for an injunction against the web-series released by Defendant no.2 and vacated the ex-parte ad-interim order.
Sajeev Pillai vs Venu Kunnapalli
Corum: Honourable Mrs Justice Shircy V.
Court: High Court of Kerala
FAO. no.191 of 2019 against the order in I.A. no. 6058 of 2019 in OS 9/2019 of II
Date of Judgement: 11 December 2019
Act: Copyright Act, 1957
Facts of the case: The appellant Sajeev Pillai, a film director and a scriptwriter, claimed to have researched the history of the grand festival Mamankam and prepared a script for a movie based on the same epic. He met Venu Kunnapalli and signed an MoU with Kavya Film Company which was associated with Kunnapalli. Sajeev was initially appointed as the director but then his service was terminated and was replaced by someone else. The shooting of the movie was thereafter completed which Sajeev alleged was done by mutilating, distorting and modifying his script. Sajeev in light of that filed a suit seeking various reliefs. An interim injunction application was also filed to restrain the respondents from releasing, publishing, distributing and exploiting the film and issuing pre-release publicity without providing adequate authorship credits to Pillai as per film industry standards.
Judgement: The Kerala High Court in the present case, referred to the relevant sections of the Copyright Act, 1957. Section 57 of the Copyright Act,1957 states the Author’s special right. The High Court in its judgement stated that “What is enshrined in Section 57(1) (a) of the Copy Right Act is that even if the copyright has been assigned, the author of a work shall have the special right to claim the authorship of the work. Section 57 (1) (b) consists of two segments. The first part would entitle the author to restrain the opposite party from making any distortion, mutilation or modification of any other action concerning the said work if it would be prejudicial to his honour or reputation. The second part says that the author is entitled to claim damages in respect of any distortion, mutilation or other modifications in the said work or any other action, concerning the copyrighted work which would be prejudicial to his honour or reputation.” The law is, therefore, clear that even after the assignment the author has the legal right to protect his intellectual property.
The Court refrained from staying the release of the movie.However, it granted relief to the aggrieved script writer by directing that nobody’s name will be exhibited as the script writer or as a writer of the screenplay of the movie ‘Mamankam’ anywhere or in the advertisements till the disposal of the suit by the Trial Court.
Raj Rewal vs Union Of India & Ors
Coram: Honourable Mr Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw
Court: High Court of Delhi
CS(COMM) 3/2018, IA No.90/2018 (u/O XXXIX R-1&2 CPC) & IA No.92/2018 (u/s 80(2) CPC)
Date of judgement: 28 May 2019
Act: Copyright Act, 1957
Facts of the case: The present case talks about one Mr Raj Rewal who designed and Mr Mahendra Raj who was the structural designer of the Hall of Nations building. The said building was hailed as an icon of modernist Indian architecture and was erected in the Pragati Maidan grounds in New Delhi. The ITPO in 2016, proposed to demolish the Hall of Nations complex to build an ‘Integrated Exhibition cum Convention Centre’. Despite several attempts made by the Plaintiff to protect the building from demolition, it resulted in what ITPO desired. Post demolition of the building the Plaintiff instituted a suit against the actions of ITPO by claiming that the actions of demolition had derogated the Plaintiff’s special rights under Section 57.
Judgement: The court observed that the plaintiff, in this case, cannot be allowed to prevent the demolition of the building by the defendant as it would in turn amount to a restriction of the defendant’s right to practice their control over their property and land which is provided to them under Article 300A which is a constitutional right that prevails over the statutory rights of the plaintiff which they claim to exist under Section 57 of Copyright Act, 1957. The court further states that the author’s right under Section 57 to prohibit ‘distortion, mutilation or modification’ of his work does not permit an author to prevent the destruction of their work since “that what cannot be viewed, seen, heard or felt, cannot be imperfect and cannot affect the honour or reputation of the author.” Therefore, the extent to which the right vested in the architect extents to is to prevent the building owner to refrain from making changes in the design made by the architect and passing it off as if the design was made by the architect. The court reasoned that the ‘reconstruction’ envisaged under Section 52(1)(x) could only take place if the building had already been demolished. The court stated that Section 57 could not reasonably contemplate the right to object to the demolition of a building. In conclusion, the court dismissed the suit due to lack of cause of action against the demolition of the Hall of Nations.
Yash Raj Films Pvt Ltd vs Sri Sai Ganesh Productions & Ors
Coram: Honourable Mr Justice Manmohan
Court: High Court of Delhi
CS(COMM) 1329/2016
Date of Judgement: 08 July 2019
Act: Copyright Act, 1957
Facts of the case: Yash Raj Films (YRF), a renowned production house and the plaintiff in this matter, was the producer of the Bollywood film Band Baja Baarat which was released on December 10, 2010 in India and other countries. YRF proclaimed through a public notice in May 2011 that it had not sold the copyrights of the film to any third party and was the sole owner of the same. In December 2011, the Plaintiff came to know that Sri Sai Ganesh Productions, one of the defendants in this case, intended to remake the film in Telugu. The plaintiff sent two cease and desist notices to the defendants, one in January 2012 and the other in April 2012 but received no response. The plaintiff issued a third notice when the defendants released a trailer. The defendants ignored the notice and released the film titled Jabardasth in February 2013. The defendants had also sold their rights to a Tamil production house for its remake, which was to be released in April 2013. The plaintiff filed a copyright infringement suit against Sri Sai Ganesh Productions, the director and the distributor of the Telugu film (collectively referred as the ‘defendants’) for blatantly copying the plot, theme and character-sketch of their movie.
Judgement: The court held that copyright exists in the ‘cinematographic film’ independent from other underlying works that come together to constitute it and that there is a requirement of originality to exist in ‘cinematographic films’ which can be read into from Section 13(1)(b) of the Copyright Act, 1957 through Sections 13(3)(a) and 2(d) of the said Act even though it has not been explicitly mentioned. The court stated that the expression ‘to make a copy of the film’ provided in Section 14(d)(i) of the said Act does not simply mean creating a physical copy of the film by process of duplication. In this case, the court found that the defendants had blatantly copied the fundamental, essential and distinctive features of the plaintiff’s film. Thus, the court decreed the suit in favour of the plaintiff and against the defendants.
Tips Industries Ltd vs Wynk Ltd. And Anr
Bench: Honourable S.J. Kathawalla
Court: High Court of Bombay
Ordinary Original civil jurisdiction in its commercial division
Notice of motion (l) no. 197 of 2018 in
Commercial IP suit (l) no. 113 of 2018 and
Notice of motion (l) no. 198 of 2018 in
Commercial IP suit (l) no. 114 of 2018
Date of judgement: 7 May 2019
Act: Copyright Act, 1957.
Facts of the case: Tips Industries Ltd (Plaintiff) was an Indian music label that exercised copyright over a significant music repository. In 2016, it granted Wynk Music Ltd (Defendant) license to access this music repository. After the expiry of the license both the parties attempted to renegotiate the licensing conditions but failed to do so following which Wynk took refuge by invoking Section 31D of the Copyright Act. Tips challenged Wynk’s invocation of Section 31D and prosecuted Wynkaccording to Section 14(1)(e) for breach of their exclusive rights of sound recording.
Judgement: The court in this case found Wynk guilty of direct infringement on two grounds. The first was to offer the copyrighted work under section 14(1) (e) (ii) which allowed the users to download and listen to the plaintiff’s work offline. The second was under section 14(1) (e) (iii) for communicating the plaintiff’s works to the users via their streaming service. The Court found Section 31D to be an exception to copyright which ought to be strictly interpreted. The court opined that statutory licensing was intended to cover only radio and television broadcasting but not internet broadcasting, as per the statutory scheme of 31D and the rules accompanying it. The court said that, despite the global existence of internet streaming services,when the Section was inserted through an Amendment Act of 2012, the legislation even though being aware of it omitted to include such services from the ambit of Section 31D. The court held that the plaintiff was entitled to an interim injunction, having regard to the reality that they had made a prima facie case, would suffer irreparable harm in the way of lost revenue.
