High Court of Gujarat in its order has quashed the judgement of trail court stating that copyrights don’t come to an end after the lifetime of a person but exists even after 60 years of it.
Observations were made by single judge bench of Justice A.P Thakur.
Brief Facts of the Case:
In the case of CRAZY CONCEPTS AND MAZES PVT. LTD. & other(s) Versus N. VENKTA YAYADRI RAO & other(s), the petitioner is a company comprising of directors and is owner of trademark ‘ Scary House’, who is engaged in entertainment business which produces various projects of art, drama, films etc and have gained popularity and goodwill among public through their exemplary work. The defendant is an ex employee of petitioner company and is current employee of defendant 2. Company. It is alleged by the petitioner that defendant had imitated its work project of horror drama which is duly published and that the defendant had dishonesty presented the similar artwork under projects of ‘Terrific Devil Zone’.
Aggrieved by which the petitioner filed a suit seeking interim injunction for restraining the defendants from committing infringement of copyright and sharing confidential information of petitioners work and representing the same as their own. Suit filed was dismissed by the ld. Trial court. Subsequently the petitioner filed an appeal before high court against trial court’s order and seeking the said
infringement.
Ld. Counsel for appellant submitted that trial court had not appreciated the section 22 of copyrights act and that the defendant had deceptively used the same trade secret for his gain by only changing the name to “Terrific Devil Zone”. Counsel prayed to allow the appeal.
Trial court while rejecting the application of petitioner observed that the copyright claimed had came to an end in the year of 2011 and so at the filing of the petition no such copyright is in existence , therefore the claim of petitioner cannot be credited.
High Court's Observation:
High Court of Gujarat while perusing the records focussed on the essence of Section 22 of Copyrights Act,1957 which provides that “Term of copyright in published literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works.—Except as otherwise hereinafter provided, copyright shall subsist in any literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work (other than a photograph) published within the lifetime of the author until 1[sixty years] from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the author dies.”
With the above section court opines that copyright does not come to end after the lifetime of a person. Infact it continues 60 years thereafter ,and also states that the trial court’s observation on the expiry of copyright was not legally tenable. The Court further focussed on the term adaptation given under copyrightes act which states that conversion of someone else’s work into one’s own by any way would fall under the said term.
The Court found that pleadings of plaintiff are based on documentary evidence and can be accepted for the purpose of interlocutory order of injunction. Court allowed the appeal and quashed the order of trial court with directions of granting prayed injunction.
CASE TITLE: CRAZY CONCEPTS AND MAZES PVT. LTD. & 1 other(s) Versus N. VENKTA YAYADRI RAO & 1 other(s)
CASE DETAILS: R/APPEAL FROM ORDER NO. 197 of 2017 With CIVIL APPLICATION (FOR STAY) NO. 2 of 2017 In R/APPEAL FROM ORDER NO. 197 of 2017
CORAM: Justice A.P Thakur
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