Copyright Infringement and Film Sequel

The film industry in India holds valuable importance in terms of employment generation and also with the monetary value associated with it. Large numbers of movies are produced in India every year. With its diverse culture and language, different industries are set up according to the state and language. Having Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, etc. makes it the most diverse and powerful medium of communication in India. With this diversity, the practice of making a sequel of the movies is on the rise. Recently, a similar matter was raised and adjudicated in the Bombay High Court.

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Facts

De Dhakka was a movie that was produced by few producers including the defendant Ameya Vinod Khopar. The rights of the movie were assigned to ZEE by the producers. Meanwhile, the defendant produced the sequel of De Dhakka as De Dhakka 2. The plaintiff, ZEE moved to Bombay High Court seeking a permanent and ad-interim injunction against the defendant.  The dispute was particularly concerned with the copyright in the underlying literary work including title, characters, script, and dialogues in De Dhaka, and the trademark over the original film title, which the Plaintiff claimed was transferred to them through an Assignment Deed and hence the Defendants had no right to make De Dhaka 2 using the same.

While proving the contention, the plaintiff showed all the deed and transfer of right that was done by the defendant back in 2008. While showing the rights, the plaintiff contended that it has the future rights over the work concerning even if the deed shows that the right transferred is Negative Rights. Therefore, if the plaintiff contends, if the deed is read in its entirety, it is the plaintiff who holds all the right. Meanwhile, the defendant gave a similar argument that the assignment if read in its entirety does not gives the right to the plaintiff over the sequel.

Observation

The plaintiff’s presumption that the right over the first film also entails the right on the sequel was misleading as per the defendant’s submission. Since the assignment does not, in any case, gives the right to the plaintiff over the sequel of the movie. The defendant even contended that the storyline and the concept were different as compared to the first movie.

If we quote clause 3 of the Assignment Deed as presented, it reads as follows – The ASSIGNOR (Satya Films) declares and undertakes that he shall not hereafter grant or in any way transfer the said Negative rights or ‘any other rights that may be discovered or come in future’ of the said PROGRAMME (De Dhakka) or any part thereof to any other person, party, company or organization.

And clause 5(a) of the Deed stipulates that –

the ASSIGNEE (ZEE) has the right to distribute, sell, use, exploit the same (Negative rights of De Dhaka) for commercial/non-commercial and other purposes in part of full…In short, the ASSIGNEE shall/may use the said PROGRAMME for the said purpose in any manner whatsoever for exploiting the said rights of the said PROGRAMME as is annexed in SCHEDULES (I & II).

The court while dealing with this case interpreted the deed and especially the clause which specifies, any other rights that exist or may be discovered or come into being in the future. The court observes that the clause must not be read individually and must be read with other provisions mentioned in the contract. The deed was clear with regards to the transfer of the rights which was limited to the movie De Dhakka and nothing else and even assigning only one film and that too, the negative rights. Also, the court relied upon the claim made by the defendant that De Dhakka 2 has an entirely different storyline, characters, music, location, etc. Finally, the Bombay High Court refused to grant the injunction against the defendant based on clear reasons.

Author: Saransh Chaturvedi (an advocate) currently pursuing LLM from Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law (IIT Kharagpur).  In case of any queries please contact/write back to us at support@ipandlegalfilings.com.