The Calcutta High Court has clarified that the amendments introduced by the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 allow Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS) to claim royalties in respect of musical and literary works in a sound recording when such sound recording is commercially exploited. Thus, the Court held that Saregama does not have legal competence to grant a licence in respect of the underlying musical and literary works incorporated in sound recordings for Vodafone’s commercial exploitation, and Vodafone does not have licence to commercially exploit those underlying contents without express permission from IPRS.
In substance, the High Court ruled that, post-2012 amendment, the copyright in a sound recording and the copyright in the underlying literary and musical works remain legally distinct; commercial exploitation of the sound recording does not, by itself, dispense with the need to respect the statutory royalty entitlements attached to the underlying works. Accordingly, contractual arrangements between a telecom operator and a music label cannot defeat the statutory rights preserved in favour of authors / copyright societies under Sections 18, 19 and 33 of the Copyright Act, 1957.
The Court found no ground to interfere with the impugned judgment, directed that deposited amounts be made over to IPRS subject to an undertaking to refund if it ultimately failed in the suits, and disposed of both appeals without costs.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md. Shabbar Rashidi observed that the dispute had to be analysed through the Copyright Act, 1957, especially the amendments introduced with effect from 21 June 2012 by the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012. It emphasised that literary works, musical works, and sound recordings are independent categories of copyright recognised by Section 13(1), and that the dispute concerned the right of IPRS to collect royalties for the original literary and musical works embedded in sound recordings.
Relying on Sections 18 and 19, particularly the 3rd and 4th provisos to Section 18(1) and Section 19(8), (9), and (10), the Bench observed that the 2012 amendments preserved the authors’ right to receive royalties in relation to literary and musical works, and rendered contrary assignments void. The Bench read Section 13(4) together with Section 19(10) to mean that copyright in a sound recording does not extinguish or absorb the separate copyright in the underlying literary and musical works. According to the Bench, these provisions recognise the continued existence of copyright in the underlying works and preserve the author’s right to claim an equal share of royalties.
The Bench expressly held that the Act, after the 2012 amendments, recognises the right of the author of literary and musical works in a sound recording to receive royalties when the sound recording is commercially exploited, except where the sound recording forms part of a cinematograph film exhibited in a cinema hall.
On the agreements between Vodafone and Saregama, the Bench observed that those agreements did not survive Section 19(10) to the extent they were sought to be construed as denying IPRS’s right to collect royalties, and further noted that some agreements themselves recognised that IPRS was entitled to royalties upon Vodafone’s commercial exploitation of sound recordings.
Briefly, Vodafone is a telecommunication service provider offering value added services (VAS) such as caller tunes and ring tones. Vodafone’s case was that, having entered into arrangements with Saregama for use of sound recordings, it was not liable to separately pay royalty to Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS).
IPRS contended that the central question was whether Vodafone had a licence to commercially exploit the underlying musical and literary works embedded in sound recordings, and argued that Vodafone had neither produced evidence of nor claimed to have obtained a licence under Sections 19, 30 and 30A of the Copyright Act, 1957 for such exploitation.
Saregama’s position before the appellate court was that its claims against Vodafone stood settled and that it was not liable to pay any amount to IPRS.
Appearances:
S.N. Mookherjee, Sr. Adv., Arunabha Deb, Adv., Soumabho Ghose, Adv., Gourav Malhotra, Adv., Ashika Daga, Adv., Raunak Das Sharma, Adv., Sanchali Bhowmik, Adv., Yash Singhi, Adv., Ayush Mitruka, Adv., and Karan Kaul, Adv., for Appellants
Samina Khanum, Adv., Ojasvi Gupta, Adv., Kaustav Misra, Adv., Mukul Kochhar, Adv., Naimish Tewari, Adv., Ritesh Ganguly, Adv., Surajit Biswas, Adv., Awani Kumar Roy, Adv, Soumya Ray Chowdhury, Adv., Ameet Datta, Adv., Susrea Mitra, Adv., for Indian Performing Right Society
Debnath Ghosh, Sr. Adv., and Avijit Dey, Adv., for SARGAMA India
