Table of Contents
Background
A complaint was filed against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. Jairam Ramesh and Supriya Shreenath for the alleged unauthorized use of music from the popular film KGF Chapter 2 during the Bharat Jodo Yatra campaign by MRT Music (owner of music rights belonging to KGF Chapter 2).
The FIR was filed at the Yeshwantpur police station under the relevant sections of the Copyrights Act, The Indian Penal Code, and The Information Technology Act.
The FIR further stated that the Rahul Gandhi and his party have used their party’s logo on the uploaded videos on various social media platforms along with the film songs, thereby falsely implying that they own the content, including the songs.
Recent developments
The Karnataka High Court refused on Wednesday to dismiss the criminal case registered against Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh and Supriya Shrinate in the copyright infringement case.
While expounding upon the same, Justice M. Nagaprasanna stated that the petitioners (Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh and Supriya Shrinate) have taken the copyright of the complainant for granted and, in furtherance of the same, have appeared to have tampered with the source code without the permission of the complainant, which has undoubtedly resulted in an infringement of the complainant’s copyright.
While stating the same, he contended that this becomes a matter of evidence that has to be examined in the investigation, and thus the petition for quashing the FIR was rejected.
Congress’s contentions
Senior Advocate Vikram Huilgol, on behalf of the Congress leaders, argued that the alleged offense falls under Section 63 of the Copyright Act, which states that the accused must knowingly infringe a copyright, whereas in this case there was no intent to infringe the copyright.
Additionally, it was argued that the petitioners did not monetize the copyrighted content in any way, so the allegation that by infringing the copyrighted content the accused have gained monetarily is baseless, and thus based on the purpose of the Copyright Act, he contended that the FIR should be quashed as the accused have no monetary gain.
MRT Music’s contention
Arguing on behalf of MRT Music (the complainants), Senior Advocate S Sriranga stated that even if there was no monetary gain made by the petitioner, they still gained popularity by using the copyrighted content.
He also alleged that the accused have also meddled with the source code, further supporting the claim of infringement on the part of Congress leaders.
According to MRT Music’s complaint, the video for Bharat Jodo Yatra was intended for mass circulation on various social media platforms, and it used a popular song that was owned and copyrighted by MRT Music.
The company claimed that, as depicted in the video produced by Congress during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, it was clear that the accused had fraudulently used the song to make wrongful gain.
Injunctions and Court Orders
On November 7, while hearing the corporate suit, an Additional City Civil and Session Judge at Bengaluru ordered a local commissioner to visit the Congress Party website, conduct an electronic audit, and also preserve the infringing materials available on their social media platform.
Additionally, the judge ordered an injunction in favor of MRT Music Company.
On November 8, this order was immediately challenged before the High Court by the Congress leaders.
The High Court set aside the order but at the same time directed the Congress party to remove the copyrighted content from its social media accounts present on various social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.
