In cases of copyright infringement the Plaintiff has to first establish a strong prima facie case for the existence of the copyright protection he claims.

Abhinav Mishra| Kirit P. Mehta School of Law| 12th June 2020

Case Name: Shamoil Ahmad Khan v. Falguni Shah & Ors.

Introduction

The present case is taken out in a copyright infringement suit where the Plaintiff seeks a temporary injunction against the defendants from telecasting or exhibiting their web series by the name “Singardaan” and the using of the said title. The Bench comprises of Justice S.C. Gupte.

Facts

• The Plaintiff is a writer and has written multiple novels and short stories. One of the short stories in his collection goes by the name of “Singardaan” published in 1993.
• The Plaintiff’s claim is that the defendant have produced a web series under an identical title which was released on an app called “Ullu”. The plaintiff complaint is that the defendant not only copied  the title but the entire plot of the short story and accordingly the plaintiffs seeks damages and as well as injunction relief.

Holding

The Bombay HC disposed of the motion by ordering the Defendant to restrain fro making any further adaptation or use in a different format of their web series by the name of “Singardaan” pending the hearing and final disposal of the suit and in the meantime the defendants are directed to maintain an account of revenue made from their web series from the inception to disposal of the suit.

Brief Analysis

The HC while addressing the what is meant by copyright in the story tackled the idea vs expression dichotomy, the bench referred to an English case Hollinrake v. Truswell which held that copyright does not extend to idea or schemes but is confined to the expression of the idea. . The court referring to the R.G. Anand case held in order to be actionable the copy must be a substantial and material one which at once leads to the conclusion that the defendant is guilty of an act of piracy. The court compared the story, theme and content of both the plaintiff’s story and the defendant’s web series and held that it is an actionable copy of the plaintiff’s work. Hence the Plaintiff has proved a prima facie case of infringement of copyright.

Now the court moving on to the relief aspect argued that since the defendants’ work has not only been completed but also sufficiently published, although the Plaintiff’s work has been illegitimately used; the use us complete and the damage has been done. Thus the court held that instead of a temporary injunction, interests of justice will be better served if the suit itself is set down for trial and the plaintiff is monetary compensated.

Conclusion

The court referred to a well-known case of Harman Pictures v. Osborne in which it was held that in cases of copyright infringement the Plaintiff has to first establish a strong prima facie case for the existence of the copyright protection he claims. The court after comparing the works of respondent and petitioner held that there was a prima facie case of infringement of copyright in favour of Plaintiff.