Delhi High Court: In a case wherein, an application under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 of Civil Procedure Code, 1908 (‘CPC’) was filed, C. Hari Shankar, J., opined that balance of convenience was clearly in favour of the plaintiff. The Court opined that forbearance from granting the relief of interim injunction would enable the defendants to continue exploiting the plaintiff’s copyright, which resulted in irreparable prejudice to the plaintiff. Thus, the Court restrained the defendants and all others acting on their behalf from exploiting or using or in any manner, or transmitting the plaintiff’s copyrighted works forming part of its repertoire available on its website or at any of its premises, without obtaining a prior license from the plaintiff.
Background
The plaintiff, Phonographic Performance Limited, owned and controlled radio broadcasting and public performance rights for over 400 music labels, with over 45 lakhs international and domestic sound recordings. The plaintiff claimed that he was the copyright owner in these recordings, as he was assigned the right in that regard by the original copyright owners under Section 18 of the Copyright Act, 1957. Thus, because of the assignment, exclusive entitlement to grant licenses for public performance of the said recording vested with the plaintiffs.
The list of the sound recordings which formed the plaintiff’s repertoire in respect of which the plaintiff enjoyed the right to grant license were available on the plaintiff’s website.
The plaintiffs submitted that the defendants were playing sound recordings, in which the plaintiff’s held copyright and which formed the part of the plaintiff’s repertoire, without obtaining any licenses from the plaintiff. The plaintiff stated that he had sent various legal notices to the defendants, but had not received any response except from Defendant 2.
Thus, the plaintiff filed an application under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 of the CPC seeking interim injunction and restraining the defendants from playing recordings which formed the part of the plaintiff’s repertoire without obtaining any license from the plaintiff.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court opined that the facts stated in the plaint justified the grant of ex parte ad interim injunction, and if, in the present case, ex parte orders were not passed the defendants would be at liberty to play the plaintiff’s copyrighted recordings without obtaining the license from the plaintiff.
The Court opined that the plaintiff was merely seeking an injunction against the defendants from playing the recordings in which the plaintiff had the copyright and formed the part of its repertoire, thus, the present ad interim order would extend to only such recordings. The Court opined that the balance of convenience was in the plaintiff’s favour, as forbearance from granting such relief would enable the defendants to continue exploiting the plaintiff’s copyright which would result in irreparable prejudice to the plaintiff.
Thus, the Court restrained the defendants and all other acting on their behalf from exploiting or using in any manner, or transmitting the plaintiff’s copyrighted works forming part of its repertoire available on its website or at any of its premises, without obtaining a prior license from the plaintiff.
The matter would next be listed on 20-12-2023.
[Phonographic Performance Ltd. v. Gola Sizzlers Pvt. Ltd., 2023 SCC OnLine Del 6829, Order dated 20-10-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Plaintiff: Chander M. Lall, Senior Advocate with Ankur Sangal, Tejveer Singh Bhatia, Sucheta Roy, Raghu Vinayak Sinha, Shaurya Pandey and Yashi Agarwal, Advocates;
For the Defendants: N.B. Joshi, Vijay Kasana, Chetna Singh, Abhijeet Vikram Singh, Kshitij Chhabra, Chirag Verma, Shivang Srivastava, Advocates along with Sanjay Singh Somwanshi, AR of the company
