'Copyright Owners Have Right To Dub Cinema' : Delhi High Court Vacates Stay On Hindi Dub Of Telugu Movie "Bheemla Nayak"

The Delhi High Court recently vacated its earlier ex-parte injunction order against M/s Sithara Entertainment which barred it from releasing the Hindi-dubbed version of its Telugu remake of the Malayalam film "Ayyappanum Koshiyum". A single judge bench of Justice Jyoti Singh, while vacating the earlier order, held that the owners of copyright in a cinematographic work will have the right to both sub-title and dub their work."...by the operation of law, Defendant No. 1 in its own right as a copyright owner has a right to dub the Telugu film in any language including Hindi and Plaintiff cannot assert any right to restrain Defendant No. 1 from dubbing the Telugu film in Hindi", the Court observed.The plaintiff JA Entertainment Pvt Ltd, in this suit, had sought for permanent injunction restraining defendants from dubbing the Telugu film "Bheemla Nayak" in Hindi as the plaintiffs have the right for Hindi remake of the Malayalam original.Plaintiff's claimThe plaintiff claimed that its creative team came across a Malayalam film 'Ayyappanum Koshiyum', which was a huge success commercially. Plaintiff decided to remake the film in Hindi language and approached the producer of the film (Defendant 3) and sought assignment of Hindi Remake Rights in the Malayalam film. Pursuant to negotiations, an Assignment Agreement was executed under which Hindi Remake Rights in the Malayalam film were assigned to the Plaintiff. As per the said Agreement, Plaintiff was assigned the exclusive, perpetual and irrevocable 'Remake and Dubbing' rights, to be exercised in all modes, mediums and formats. The rights assigned, to the extent relevant for the present case included: (a) the sole right to make a new cinematograph film based on the Malayalam film in Hindi language; (b) right to dub the Malayalam film as well as the Hindi remake in any or all languages; and (c) right to subtitle in any language for any purpose through any media. Accordingly, the Plaintiff commenced pre-production of the Hindi Remake. Later, the Plaintiff came across a trailer of a Telugu film on YouTube, titled 'Bheemla Nayak' (suit film) dubbed in Hindi, though its release date was not announced. Since this indicated a potential infringement of Plaintiff's rights, Plaintiff enquired from Defendants the nature of rights assigned to the producer of Bheemla Nayak. It was clarified that only limited rights had been as signed to Defendant No. 1 (producer of Bheemla Nayak) to remake the Malayalam film in Telugu language. However, on learning that exploitation rights of the suit film had been assigned to one Goldmine Telefilms Pvt. Ltd., Plaintiff sent a Legal Notice highlighting its rights and called upon Defendant No. 1 to cease and desist from releasing the suit film in theatres or through any other mode or medium, as that would amount to infringement. On receiving a reply to the Notice from Defendant No. 1 stating that by virtue of being the producer of the Telugu remake suit film, Defendant No. 1 was the copyright owner.Issue before the CourtThe question before the court was whether dubbing the Telugu film in Hindi by Defendant No. 1 constitutes infringement of Plaintiff's rights under the Copyright Act (Act). In order to do so, the court stated that it was imperative to understand who the 'author' under the provisions of the Act was. The court opined that from a conjoint reading of Sections 17, 2(d)(v) and 2(uu) of the Act, the author of a work is the first owner of the copyright and in relation to a cinematograph film, the producer is the author and thus the first owner of the copyright. Under the provisions of Section14(a)(iv), the author of a work has a right to make a cinematograph film and Section 14(d) provides the rights that the author would have the right to communicate the film to the public. Here, the court relied upon the judgement of Thiagarajan Kumararaja v. Capital Film Works (India) Pvt. Ltd. and Another, 2017 SCC OnLine Mad 37588 to elaborate upon the phrase 'communication to the public'. In this case, the Division Bench of the Madras High Court held that dubbing would fall within the ambit of the expression 'communicating to the public' while interpreting the expression 'otherwise enjoyed' in Section 2(ff) of the Act. It stated that-"The use of the expression "otherwise enjoys" after the words seen or heard enlarges the scope of how communication with the public has to be made...The Legislature it seems consciously has enlarged the scope of the expression "communication to the public" by bringing in the aspect of enjoyment. Dubbing would, thus, in our view, fall within the ambit of the expression communicating to the public...In short, the principle being that the owners of copyright in a cinematographic work will, inter alia, have the right to both sub-title and dub their work."Another question raised by the court was whether Remake and Dubbing rights that were assigned to the Plaintiff included making a new cinematograph film and the underlying...

'Copyright Owners Have Right To Dub Cinema' : Delhi High Court Vacates Stay On Hindi Dub Of Telugu Movie "Bheemla Nayak"

Padmakshi Sharma

Tags