Delhi High Court: In an application filed under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908, C. Hari Shankar J., till the next date of the hearing restrained DJ Light and Sound Association, Chandigarh, Defendant 2 and others acting on its behalf from circulating any communication to the public, propagating the message that no licence was needed to be taken from the plaintiff before playing or exploiting any recordings in which the plaintiff held the copyright.
In an order dated 11-10-2023, passed by the present Court, the Court noted that various associations such as DJ Light and Sound Association Chandigarh, Defendant 2 were misinforming public that before playing music recordings at public places, licenses were not required to be obtained from copyright holders of such recordings on the ground that the copyright holders were not registered copyright societies.
Since Defendant 2 was provoking the public to play copyrighted recordings of Phonographic Performance Limited, the plaintiff without obtaining a licence from them by spreading false propaganda, the Court expressed its discomfiture and directed impleadment of Defendant 2 in the present proceedings and directed notice to be issued to the said entity.
Thus, the present application was filed seeking further interim directions and it was pointed out in the present application that on being informed by the plaintiff of the order passed by this Court on 11-10-2023, instead of taking remedial steps, Defendant 2 organised a candle march protesting against the plaintiff. Further, it was also contended that Defendant 2 continued to mislead public into believing that no license was required to be obtained from the plaintiff before exploiting copyrighted recordings.
Therefore, till the next date of the hearing, the Court restrained Defendant 2 and others acting on its behalf from circulating any communication to the public, propagating the message that no licence was needed to be taken from the plaintiff before playing or exploiting any recordings in which the plaintiff held the copyright. The Court further opined that in view of prima facie opinion expressed in the order dated 11-10-2023, the Court would be constrained to take a serious view of the matter if Defendant 2 persisted in propagating messages to the public which ran contrary to what this Court has held in its order.
The matter would next be listed for hearing and disposal on 28-11-2023.
[Phonographic Performance Ltd. v. Esteem Services, CS(COMM) 723 of 2023, Order dated 10-11-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Plaintiff: C.M. Lall, Senior Advocate with Ankur Sangal, Tejveer Singh Bhatia, Sucheta Roy, Raghu Vinayak Sinha, Shaurya Pandey and Yashi Aggarwal, Advocates;
For the Defendant: Arjun Singh, Advocate
