Copyright protection given to “cinematographic films” is at par with other original works.

Yash Raj Films Pvt. Ltd. (plaintiff) filed a copyright infringement case against Sri Sai Ganesh Productions & Ors. (defendant) alleging that the Telugu movie, Jabardasht, was a blatant copy of the plaintiff’s movie, Band Baja Baaraat, and there were substantial and material similarities in terms of theme, concept, plot, character, sketches, story, script, form and expression etc. The plaintiff sought for permanent injunction restraining defendants from violating and infringing their copyrights in BBB by releasing the impugned movie and dubbing it in any other language including Tamil. Justice Manmohan of the Delhi High Court, while passing his order in favour of the plaintiff, relied on MRF Limited v. Metro Tyres Ltd. where the Court held that copyright subsists in the ‘cinematographic film’ independent from other underlying works that come together to constitute it and that there is a requirement of originality to exist in ‘cinematographic films’ which can be read into Section 13(1)(b) of the Copyright Act, 1957 through Sections 13(3)(a) and 2(d) of the said Act even though it has not been explicitly mentioned. It was also held that the expression “to make a copy of the film” in Section 14(d)(i) of the said Act does not mean just to make a physical copy of the film by process of duplication. Further, as the scope of protection of films was at par with other original works, the Court would apply the test of originality laid down in the landmark case of R.G. Anand v. Deluxe Films, (1978) 4 SCC 118, to compare the ‘substance, foundation and kernel’ of the two films and see if an average viewer would get an unmistakable impression that one work was a copy of the other. In the present case, the Court found that the defendant had copied the fundamental, essential & distinctive features along with expression of BBB and had thereby infringed plaintiff’s copyright.