Aarur Tamilnadan v. S. Sankar and Sun TV Network Limited. 2023 SCC OnLine Mad 3930

FACTS OF THE CASE

The Plaintiff (Aarur Tamilnadan) claims that he wrote a story about Humanoid Robot and, published the book “Jugiba” and subsequently published it in a Tamil monthly magazine named “Iniya Udayam” in April 1996. In 2007, the same group of publishers published it in a book titled “Thik Thik Theepika”, which was sold all over the state.

Defendant No. 1 (S. Sankar) is a storywriter and director and claims he made a film named “Enthiran” in Tamil and other languages and Defendants 2 and 3 (Sun Pictures and Lyca Pictures) claims that they produced this film.

It was further claimed by the Plaintiff that the story of “Jugiba” had been pirated in the film “Enthiran” without any permission of the plaintiff. The defendant made a huge profit through the movie. However, the defendant claims that the story of the Humanoid Robot is a decade old and the basic knowledge about humanoid Robot is the same and specifically denies the claims that the movie had the exact same plot as the story written by the Plaintiff.

ISSUE

Whether the film Enthiran amounts to copyright infringement of plaintiff’s story “Jugiba”?

JUDGEMENT

The present suit was filed by the Plaintiff claiming that he was the first owner of the story “Enthiran” alleging that it was stolen/pirated from the original story “Jugiba” which was written and were published in April 1996.

The Plaintiff and Defendants put forth their averments and evidences. After due consideration of the arguments presented, the Court passed the judgment stating that there was no infringement. The court observed that there can be no copyright over an idea or concept and for the purpose of Copyright Infringement. Copyright exists only in tangible expression of idea.

The Hon’ble Court further observed that there are many dissimilarities in the book “Jugiba” of the Plaintiff and the movie “Enthiran” of the Defendant. The Robot of Movie was first developed for Indian Army, which subsequently developed emotions and then fallen in love with a girl and Enthiran had multiple characters while Jugiba had only three characters. This story line was different from that of the Plaintiff’s book and the Plaintiff himself had admitted that the defendants have made numerous additions to his story to suit the cinema audience, which established for the court that “Enthiran” had sufficient dissimilarities. There cannot be any monopoly in the theme of this idea of a Robot falling in love with a woman.

The Court also noted that the test has to be followed to determine if there is violation of copyright infringement. The test is to examine whether the reader or the view has an overall impression that the work has been copied from the original work. Therefore, it was held that if the theme of both the plots are distinct then there is no copyright infringement. Accordingly, the suit was dismissed and the remedies prayed for were rejected as the court protects only the tangible expression of the idea  

KS&CO COMMENTS

This landmark ruling reinforces the core tenets of copyright law, which promote originality, creativity, and respect for intellectual property rights. It is a significant decision that will guide creators, filmmakers, and the entire creative community towards an environment that values these principles. Mere resemblance of a sequence, or existence of few commonalities are not sufficient to constitute a case of infringement. The law encourages free sharing and exchange of ideas.

Therefore, one may adopt the thumb rule that it is less likely to be an infringement owing to the foregoing. Only where a work appears to be merely touched up a little without changing anything else, is it possible to succeed on infringement.

The court’s decision is a reminder that copyright protection is not automatic. Creators need to take steps to protect their work by registering their copyrights and by taking other measures to prevent infringement.