Rocky film copy right case

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS
(Ordinary Original Civil Jurisdiction)
O.A. No. of 2021
in
C.S. (Com. Div.) No. of 2021

RA STUDIOS,
Represented by its Sole Proprietor,
Mr. R. Manoj Kumar,
Having office at No. 34, Developed Pots,
South Phase, Industrial Estate,
Guindy, Chennai – 600 032 … Applicant / Plaintiff

– VS –

1. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited,
Bharat Sanchar Bhavan, Harish Chandra Mathur Lane,
Janpath, New Delhi – 110 001

2. Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd.,
5th Floor, Mahanagar Doorsanchar Sadan,
9, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi – 110 003

3. Bharati Airtel Limited,
Bharati Crescent, 1, Nelson Mandela Road,
Vasant Kunj, Phase II, New Delhi – 110 070

4. Vodafone Idea Limited (formerly Idea Cellular Limited),
Suman Tower, Plot no. 18, Sector 11,
Gandhinagar, Gujarat – 382 011

5. Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.,
9th Floor, Maker Chambers-IV,
222, Nariman Point, Mumbai – 400 021

6. Atria Convergence Technologies Private Limited,
Indian Express Building, 2nd & 3rd Floor,
No. 1, Queen’s Road, Bengaluru – 560 001

7. Hathway Cable & Datacom Limited,
4th Floor, “Rahejas” Main Avenue,
Santacruz West, Mumbai – 400 054

8. Tata Docomo,
2A, Old Ishwar Nagar, Main Mathura Road,
New Delhi – 110 065

9. Asianet Satellite Communications,
2A, 2nd Floor, Leela Infopark, Technopark Limited,
Kazhakoottam, Thiruvananthapuram – 695 581

10. Tikona Digital Networks Private Limited,
3A, 3rd Floor, ‘Corpora’, L.B.S. Marg,
Bhandup West, Mumbai – 400 078

11. You Broadband & Cable India Limited,
Plot No. 54, Marol Co-operative Industrial Estate,
Makwana, Andheri East, Mumbai – 400 059

12. Reliance Communications Infrastructure Limited,
Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City,
Navi Mumbai – 400 709

13. Rail Tel Corporation of India Ltd.,
6th Floor, Block III, Delhi Technology Park,
Shastri Park, Delhi – 110 053

14. Shyam Spectra Pvt. Ltd.,
A-60, Naraina Industrial Area,
Phase -I, New Delhi – 110 028

15. Sify Technologies Limited,
2nd Floor, ‘Tidel Park’, No.4, Canal road,
Taramani,Chennai – 600 113

16. AT & T Global Network Service India Pvt. Ltd.,
13th Floor, 1305-06, Mohan Dev House,
13, Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi – 110 001

17. Peak Air Pvt Ltd.,
No. 36/567 G, Ananthapuri Building,
P.F Road, Kaloor, Cochin – 682 017

18. Knet Solutions Pvt Ltd. (Cherrinet),
No.141, Prakash Towers, Ground Floor, OMR,
Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai – 600 041\

19. Limras Eronet Broadband Services Private Limited,
No.18/7, 1st Floor, Postal Colony,
III Street, West Mambalam, Chennai – 600 033

20. SITI Networks Limited,
Unit No. 38, 1st Floor, A Wing Madhu Industrial Estate,
P.B. Marg, Worli, Mumbai – 400 013

21. Andhra Pradesh State Fiber Net Limited,
3rd Floor, NTR Administrative Block,
Pandit Nehru Bus Station, NH – 65, Vijayawada,
Andhra Pradesh – 520 001

22. Raaj Internet (I) Private Limited,
Old No. 12, New No. 27,
Singanna Chetty Street, Chintadripet,
Chennai – 600 002

23. Joister Infoserve Private Limited,
Shop No. 4 Borivali Neelkamalco, Daulat Nagar,
RD No. 10, Borivali East, Mumbai – 400 066

24. GTPL Hathway Ltd.,
202, 2nd Floor, Sahajanand, Shopping Center,
Opp. Swaminarayan Temple,
Shahibaugh, Ahmedabad – 380 004

25. Ready Link Internet Service Limited,
Galaxy, Plot No. 7, Sakthi Colony,
RK Puram, Ganapathy, Coimbatore – 641 006

26. Nettlinx Limited,
5-9-22, 3rd Floor, My Home Sarovar Plaza,
Secretariat Road, Saifabad, Hyderabad – 500 004

27. Excitel Broadband Private Limited,
Plot No 48, 2nd Floor, Okhla Industrial Estates,
Phase III, New Delhi – 110 020

28. Southern Online Bio Technologies Limited,
Flat No. A3, 3rd Floor, Office Block,
Samrat Complex, Saifabad, Hyderabad – 500 004
29. Dawn Supports Private Limited,
39/4916/D3, Divans Tower,
Karimpatta Cross Road, Pallimukku,
Kochi, Ernakulam – 682 016 … Respondents 1 – 29 / Defendants 1 – 29

AFFIDAVIT OF MR. R. MANOJ KUMAR

I, Mr. R. Manoj Kumar S/o. Rajagopalan, aged about 37 years, having office at No. 34, Developed Pots, South Phase, Industrial Estate, Guindy, Chennai – 600 032, do hereby solemnly affirm and sincerely state as under:

1. I am the Sole Proprietor of the Applicant Company herein and I am well acquainted with the facts and circumstances of the case. I crave leave of this Hon’ble Court to treat the averments in the Plaint and Schedule as part and parcel hereof and I am not repeating the contents therein for the sake of brevity.

2. The Applicant is a reputed Film Production Company and involved in the business of production, acquisition, co-production, promotion, marketing and distribution of various cinematographic films and audio-visual content in
various Indian languages, in multiple formats worldwide including but not limited to; theatrical, television syndication, digital and Internet connected platforms.

3. The Applicant’s latest venture is the cinematograph film titled “ROCKY” in
Tamil language, starring Vasanth Ravi, Raveena Ravi Bharathiraja and others directed by Arun Matheshwaran. The said Film is an upcoming Tamil Movie. The Applicant has invested substantial sums of money in the production of the said Film and is scheduled to be released in more than 500 screens worldwide including Chennai. The trailer for the promotion of
the said Film have been released to the general public and the official trailer

was published on You Tube during 28/09/2019 and the said Film has already garnered 12,53,080 views. The said Film is scheduled to be released on 23/12/2021. The Applicant acquired all exploitation and distribution rights including theatrical rights, music rights, other rights including TV, internet, digital and home video and all the aforementioned rights are exclusive. Furthermore, the Applicant has the right to bring, extend or defend any proceedings related to the infringement in respect of the film. The Applicant has the exploitation rights of the said Film under the provisions of Copyright Act, 1957 as amended in 2012 vide the Copyright (Amendment) Act 2012.

4. I submit that the various cable and internet services provided by various persons (Respondents 1 – 38) across the world are involved in activities of recording, cam-cording and reproducing the audio songs, audio-visual clips, audio-visual songs and full cinematographic films that are screened in theatres and then copying / reproducing them through various medium including but not limited to CDs, DVDs, VCDs, Blu-ray Discs, computer hard drives, pen drives, etc., and distribute the same for selling at a meagre sum to the general public without any leave or authorisation of the production houses / copyright holders / right holders such as the Applicant herein. Such activities results in heavy loss and damage to production houses/copyright holders/right holders such as the Applicant herein.

5. I submit that the web pages and websites which provide such links are also multifarious and are disbursed all over the globe. Such websites are allowed to be viewed in India through various internet service providers and cable operators such as Respondents 1 – 38 herein.

6. I submit that the web pages and websites which provide such links are also multifarious and are disbursed all over the globe. Such websites are allowed to be viewed in India through various internet service providers such as Respondents 1 – 29 herein. As per the Copyright (Amendment)

Act 2012, the Applicant is permitted to seek an order from this Hon’ble Court directing ISP’s including but not limited to those listed as the Respondents 1 – 29 and any other person and/or entity infringing the Applicant’s rights herein to block access to links which are hosting the complete Film, audio songs, audio-visual clips and audio-visual songs of the said Film (hereinafter referred to as “said Work”), without knowledge, consent or authorisation from the Applicant herein.

7. I submit that the Applicant reasonably apprehends that as and when the said Film is released in theatres, such acts of piracy would also commence and websites as described would again mobilize to illegally copy, record, download, reproduce, transmit and communicate the said copyright protected said Work to general public. Such act would cause serious loss and damage to the business of the Applicant and would also render a death blow to the commercial viability and business prospects of the said Film.

8. I submit that the extensive list of 439 websites in Schedule consist of Non-Compliant websites. There is a distinction to be made when comparing these websites to other websites that such as YouTube that host primarily legitimate content and have a reporting and “take down” mechanism in place, with respect to any infringing content. The list of websites provided in Schedule primarily host infringing content. When only URL’s for specific links of these websites in question are blocked, these Non-Compliant Websites merely create mirror websites by changing an insignificant part of the URL and are therefore able to reinstate the infringing material with minimal effort. I submit that the main purpose of these websites is to host infringing content, and thus these websites should be blocked in their entirety. Furthermore, the websites that are listed in Schedule do not have any sort of “take-down” mechanism whereby copyright holders can notify the website of a user who has posted content that infringes their Copyright. Additionally, in the past, requests to take down certain infringing content by Copyright Holders have fallen on deaf ears.

9. I submit that the Applicant reasonably apprehends that 439 websites mentioned in Schedule of the Plaint have the potential to upload and/or enable third parties to copy, reproduce, distribute, display through cable or online medium of the Applicant’s copyright protected Film and Work through the 29 ISPs. The Applicant out of abundant caution and to protect its interests is in the process of issuing notices to the websites/URL’s including the websites mentioned in Schedule. The Respondents have not entered into any license agreement with the Applicant for communicating the movie and thus it amounts to infringement of Applicant’s Copyright under Sec. 14(1) (d) read with Section 16 of Copyright Act, 1957.

10. I submit that the present suit is being instituted as a quiatimet action on account of reasonably apprehended acts of infringement. Unless the Respondents are restrained from such unauthorised transmission, communication of the said Film and said Work, public interest would also suffer on account of poor quality of the said Film and said Work communicated to them by the Respondents. Further, unless the Respondents are restrained as prayed for, other persons with whom the Applicant had entered into agreements for the purpose of marketing, promotion, exploitation, communication etc., would also suffer huge financial losses and be encouraged to communicate Applicant’s said Film and said Work without making agreed payments to the Applicant.

11. I submit that the Applicant has prima facie case for grant of ad-interim / temporary injunction in its favour. The Applicant is the producer and the
first owner of the Copyright in the cinematographic film “ROCKY”.
The Respondents herein, on the other hand, have no right whatsoever to copy, reproduce, record or in any manner communicate or allow others to communicate the Applicant’s Copyright protected cinematographic work “ROCKY”. The Respondents have not entered into any agreement with the Applicant herein in respect of communication of the cinematographic film /
motion picture to the general public through any medium including online

medium through uploads and downloads. The Applicant has further proved that the Respondents prepare poor copies of the film / motion picture and disburse it among general public in consequence whereof the reputation
and goodwill of the Applicant is tremendously prejudiced. The balance of convenience is also in favour of the Applicant. The Applicant has shown reasonable cause for the present action based on the past experience with such unnamed and unidentified pirates who have time and again involved in such nefarious and infringing activities causing enormous loss to the business of the Applicant. Unless an order of injunction as prayed for is granted, the Applicant would be put to enormous loss and prejudice not only to its business but also to the goodwill and reputation of the forthcoming motion picture “ROCKY”. On the other hand, the Respondents would not be prejudiced with the present application.

In view of the above, the Applicant / Plaintiff, therefore prays that this Hon’ble Court may be pleased to grant an order of interim injunction restraining the Respondents 1 to 29 / Defendants 1 to 29 from infringing the cinematographic film “ROCKY” and said work be directed to block all websites / web pages including websites mentioned in Schedule hosting contents that relate to Applicant’s / Plaintiff’s copyright protected cinematographic film “ROCKY” in any manner, thereby restraining the unauthorised copying, transmission, communication or make available or display or release or show or upload or download or exhibit or play and / or in any manner communicate in and / or through their services immediate of receipt of details of such infringing websites/web pages in writing, pending disposal of the above suit and thus render justice.

Solemnly affirmed at Chennai BEFORE ME
on this the 18th day of December 2021
and the deponent signed his name in my presence
ADVOCATE, CHENNAI