The Delhi High Court has held that the unauthorised use of songs in the Kannada film Bachelor Party amounts to copyright infringement, while imposing ₹5 lakh exemplary costs on actor-producer Rakshit Shetty and other defendants for willful disobedience of its earlier order.
The dispute arose from a suit filed by M/s MRT Music, claiming exclusive copyright over the audio-visual recordings, sound recordings, and underlying literary and musical works of the songs “Nyaya Ellide” and “Omme Ninnanu.” The plaintiff alleged that the defendants had incorporated portions of these works in the film without obtaining a valid licence.
At the outset, the Court rejected the defendants’ objection to jurisdiction, holding that it possessed both territorial and pecuniary jurisdiction to entertain the suit. Consequently, the application seeking return of the plaint under Order VII Rule 10 CPC was dismissed.
On merits, the Court held that the plaintiff continued to hold exclusive copyright in the original works and that such rights had not lapsed under Section 19(4) of the Copyright Act. It further ruled that the defendants’ use of the songs did not qualify as “fair use” or fall within the de minimis exception. The Court also clarified that the plaintiff was entitled to grant licences even without being a registered copyright society under Section 33 of the Act, and that the licence fee demanded was neither excessive nor unreasonable.
Accordingly, the Court allowed the plaintiff’s application for injunction and dismissed the defendants’ plea seeking vacation of the earlier ex parte ad-interim injunction. However, considering that the defendants had already deposited ₹20 lakh pursuant to earlier directions, the Court ordered that the amount be released to the plaintiff, subject to the outcome of the suit, in lieu of restraining further use of the works in the film.
Significantly, the Court found that the defendants had willfully disobeyed its earlier order dated August 12, 2024, and therefore held them liable for contempt. It imposed exemplary costs of ₹5 lakh, payable to the plaintiff within two weeks.
All pending applications were disposed of in these terms.
Appearances:
For the Plaintiff: Ms. Swathi Sukumar, Senior Advocate with Ms. Asavari Jain, Ms. Geetanjali Visvanathan, Mr. Shivansh Tiwari, Mr. Ritik Raghuvanshi, Ms. Shrudula Murthy, Ms. Rishika Aggarwal and Ms. Prathibha, Advocates.
For the Defendants: Mr. J. Sai Deepak, Senior Advocate with Ms. Meenakshi Ogra, Mr. Samrat S. Kang and Mr. Vishnu Gambhir, Advocates for D- 1 and D-2
