Bombay High Court: In a copyright infringement case seeking temporary injunction, filed by the plaintiff against the use of the title “LOOTERE” for the cinematographic work, the Single Judge Bench of Sandeep V. Marne, J., dismissed the application and held that copyright subsists in a cinematographic film itself, as well as in its literary work, thus, as long as the story of the two films is different, mere similarity in the title would not give rise to an actionable claim under the provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957 (‘Copyright Act’). Thus, the Court stated that since title of a book or a film does not constitute a ‘work’ within the meaning of Section 2(y) of the Copyright Act, no copyright can subsist in a mere film title.
Background
The plaintiff carried on a business of film production as proprietor in the name of Shree Krishna International. Plaintiff had already produced, released and exhibited a Hindi feature film “LOOTERE” in the year 1993 starring Sunny Deol, Juhi Chawla, Nasiruddin Shah, Anupam Kher and others. The film received Censor Certificate on 5-3-1993 from Central Board of Film Certification. Plaintiff had registered the title of the film “LOOTERE” with Defendant 4-Western India Film Producers Association (Producers’ Association), which is still valid. Further, the plaintiff also filed necessary applications and secured registration of the title “LOOTERE” for Feature Film, TV Serial, Web Series and Web Film.
In September 2022, the plaintiff came across the trailer of web series with the name “LOOTERE” being broadcasted on OTT platform Disney Hotstar (now Jio Hotstar) which was uploaded by Defendant 1- Star India Pvt. Ltd. (Star India) Thus, Plaintiff issued advocate’s notice to defendants on 9-9-2022, to restrain themselves from releasing the web series with the title “LOOTERE”. The notice was responded by defendants. The web series with the title “LOOTERE” finally got released on 22-3-2024 on OTT platform Disney Hotstar.
Therefore, the plaintiff filed an application before the Court under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908 seeking temporary injunction to restrain defendants from producing and/or releasing and/or exploiting the title “LOOTERE” allegedly owned and registered by the plaintiff.
The plaintiff contended that no other film or entertainment program can be produced by using the title “LOOTERE” without his licence/permission as he registered the said title of the film with the Producers’ Association. The said registration was also renewed from time to time and separate registration was secured for the categories of feature film, TV series, web series and web film with Producers’ Association.
Analysis, Law and Decision
The Court pointed out that plaintiff can injunct others from producing another film, web series or any other entertainment program using the said literary work i.e. story of the film but in the instant case except similarity in the title, Plaintiff’s cinematograph film “LOOTERE” admittedly does not have any similarity in terms of story with the web series of Star India.
Issue 1: Whether the producer can claim rights in respect of title of the film for which he owns the copyright for?
The Court observed that to claim copyright, the title must constitute a “work” and then qualify being a “literary work” as contemplated under Section 13 of the Copyright Act. Even if copyright subsist in literary work of a film and also in the film itself, mere title of the film does not qualify as work within the meaning section 2(y) of the Copyright Act. Therefore, the Court opined that since title of a book or a film does not constitute “work” within the meaning of Section 2(y) of the Copyright Act, no copyright can subsist in the mere title. Hence, the plaintiff cannot claim any rights in mere title of the film “LOOTERE”.
Issue 2: Whether Plaintiff’s registration of the title of the film, with the Producers’ Association would create any right in his favour to prevent third parties from using the same title?
The Court noted that the plaintiff’s claim that registration with the Producers’ Association is not only in respect of use of the title in a film but also for feature film, TV serials, web series and web films. Furthermore, the Court observed that no statute confers right on such associations of film producers to grant registration in respect of titles or any other copyrightable works. Such registration is only done to ensure that other producers can locate whether a particular title has already been used for another film and if the producer still desires to use the same tittle, he can approach the owner of the title to seek licence/permission for the same. Therefore, violation of such agreement may give rise to an action in contract but does not give rise to any statutory right.
Since it is a contractual right, it cannot be enforced against an entity which is a not a member of the Association. In the instant case, Star India was not the member of Producers’ Association. Therefore, the alleged contractual right created by such registration with the Association cannot be enforced against Star India, who is the producer of the web series.
Additionally, it was observed that Plaintiff’s prayer for temporarily restraining defendants from producing, releasing or exploiting the title “LOOTERE” has become infructuous since the web series has already been produced and has been streaming on the OTT platform Jio Hotstar since 22-3-2024. The Court also stated that the title “LOOTERE” otherwise lacks any form of originality as the same is a common word used to describe robbers. Plaintiff therefore cannot claim any monopoly in the said word. The producer of the web series was thus entitled to use the commonly used word “LOOTERE” for describing thieves or robbers for its web series.
Based on these observations the Court opined that mere registration of title with Producers’ Association or by any other Association does not create any statutory right in favour of the Plaintiff to restrain defendants from using the title ‘LOOTERE’ for making of their web series.
Accordingly, the Court dismissed the application and denied to grant the temporary injunction to the plaintiff and held that the copyright subsists in a cinematographic film itself, along with its literary work, so, as long as the story of the two films was different, mere similarity in the title would not give rise to an actionable claim under the provisions of Copyright Act.
[Sunil v. Star India (P) Ltd., 2025 SCC OnLine Bom 2937, decided on 18-8-2025]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
Advocate for the Plaintiff- Ashok M. Saraogi, Siddharth Singh; Advocates
Advocate for the Respondents- Ashish Kamat, Senior Advocate; Thomas George, Tanvi Sinha, Navankur Pathak, Neeti Nihal, Bhargavi Baradhwaj i/b Saikrishna & Associates, Advocates
