FAMOUS COPYRIGHT CASES OF INDIA

FAMOUS COPYRIGHT CASES OF INDIA

FAMOUS COPYRIGHT CASES OF INDIA

Below mentioned are a few famous cases of copyright infringement in India.

 

  • Thiagarajan Kumararaja v. M/s Capital Film Works and Anr.: This judgement provided some narrative to the confusion over the rights of producer of a film with the authors of the underlying work. The main issue before the madras High Court was whether dubbing of a film into another language would fall foul of the rights of the scriptwriter. It was held that the producers have the right to replace the sound recording of the original film with a different language. The very widely interpreted the phrase ‘communication to the public’ under the section 2(ff). It observed that dubbing would fall under such interpretation. It was held that dubbing does not mean translation and the producer has a right to communicate the film to the public, and through dubbing they can do so. This does not affect the rights of the author of the underlying script. However, the right to remake the film does not come under the right to communicate a film to the public.

 

  • Neetu Singh v. Rajiv Saumitra: The judgment gave light into the relatively untouched territory of Section 17(c) of the Copyright Act. In case of dispute between an employer and an employee, the employment agreement has to be taken into account. The court clarified that the provisions that needs to be looked while determining the rights. It said that in case of a Director, the it is any subsisting agreement, or the Articles of Association or the Memorandum of Association of the company. The court relied on this principle and held that in the present case though the Plaintiff was working as a Director of the Defendant No. 2 company from 2012 to 2014, there was no proof that that the literary work was authored as part of her duties and obligations as a Director and granted an injunction in favour of the Plaintiff.

 

  • Dashrath B. Rathod & Ors. v. Fox Star Studios India Pvt. Ltd. & Ors.: The learned judge  in this famous case came down heavily on the tendency of parties to approach the court at the last hour asking for an injunction order against pending movie releases. The judgment very clearly laid down in that the attempts to seek last minute injunctions at the cost of putting both the opposite party and the court machinery under undue pressure should not be tolerated in any way. This is especially when not even a prima facie case of copyright infringement was made out by the Plaintiff in the instant case. In the present case, the plaintiff seemed for a injunction against the movie in the last minute against the release of the movie Phillauri, The bench relied on the provisions of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 and also imposed a cost of Rs. 5,00,000 lakhs on the Plaintiff.

 

  • Anil Kapoor Film Co. Pvt. Ltd. v. Make My Day Entertainment & Anr.: The Bombay High Court In a very well-reasoned interim order, refused to grant an ad-interim injunction for the passing off by the makers of the film Veere Ki Weddingthat was still in production against the makers of the film Veere Di Weddingwhich was soon to be released. The court held that the phrase ‘Veere di Wedding’ is very common and the plaintiff also needed to prove reputation through consumer recognition. This means that the title whenever mentioned, it shall be associated with the public mind as referring only to the plaintiffs work. this was  held next to impossible in this case because the movie was not even in existence. It also rejected the argument on misrepresentation, clarifying that just by virtue of having a made a film with a similar title, the defendant cannot be said to have attempted to deceive the public.
     
     

     

 

  • Eastern Book Company Limited v D. B Modak: In the case the appellant was engaged in the business of publishing all judgments with the required case notes and headnotes through its publication reporter called Supreme Court Cases. The appellant claimed that the respondent were scanning, copying and reproducing portions of the publication through a software called Grand Jurix. This was claimed to  be an infringement under Section 51 of the Copyright Act 1957. In the final judgement, the division bench of the High Court, it was held that respondents were allowed to sell their software but without the headnotes, footnotes and case notes drafted by the appellants which were made with intensive labour and skill of the appellants. However it was clearly held that  the appellants do not own the judgments. 

 

  • Gramaphone Company of India vs Super Cassette Industries: It was held that In interpreting the word "import" in the Copyright Act, it shall be taken in the manner that Copyright Act intends to apple. It was held that the defendant had infringed the copyright of the plaintiff in sound recordings which resulted due to the defendants selling the remix of an old song as a mobile tune. On a similar Super Cassettes Ltd v Yahoo Inc and Anr in which the Delhi High Court had issued a notice to Yahoo Inc for infringing the copyright of the plaintiffs by streaming one of its videos on the Yahoo.com portal. 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

  • M/s Shree Krishna International and Ors. vs. Google India Pvt. Ltd. and Ors.: The plaintiff is a famous film production company, filed a permanent injunction suit against Google India and Youtube LLC for infringement of the sound recording, cinematograph films and audio-visual songs without the Plaintiffs prior authorisation and further stated that the unauthorized downloaderand the defendants were sharing the ad revenue generated from this, causing monetary loss to the Plaintiff. The defendants argued that they were just providing a platform for the exhibition of the plaintiffs work, and were not aware that copyright was infringed, however, owing to the monetary loss suffered by the Plaintiff, the Court ruled in favour of the Plaintiff.

 

  • Microsoft Corporation v Yogesh Popat: It was seen the defendants were illegally selling pirated copies of microsoft software. The evidence presented before the court included pirated versions of Windows 98, Office 2000 and Visual Studio 6.0illegally distributed by the defendants without any authorization. The Delhi High Court held in the favour of Microsoft Corporation and granted them compensation of Rs 23.62 lacs against M/s Crompton Computers Private Ltd and its directors for illegally selling pirated Microsoft software in the computer machines which was assembled by the defendants.
     

-Raksha Singhal