Court directs Twitter to block handles of Congress, Bharat Jodo Yatra over ‘unauthorised use’ of KGF-2 music
The court order came after a complaint was filed by MRT music against three Congress leaders — Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh, and Supriya Shrinate – for alleged unauthorized use of music from ‘KGF Chapter-2′ during the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
“Relying upon the documents produced by the plaintiff more particularly two CDs with regard to copyright piracy and also considering the prima facie material available against defendants 1 to 3 (INC, Supriya Shrinate and Rahul Gandhi) for having infringed the statutory copyright owned and held by the plaintiffs who has unauthorizedly and illegally used the sound records of the film KGF chapter-2 by affixing their logo on the said videos and further considering the provisions of Section 79 of IT Act, 4th defendant( Twitter Inc) is directed to remove and take down the links from its platform three links till further orders and further block the social media(INC and Bharat Jodo handles )till next date. Plaintiff to comply the ad-interim order passed by this court against defendants as per the provisions of Order XXXIX Rule 3 Civil Procedure Code by November 7,2022” the judge has said in her order.
The exparte ad-interim injuncts the defendants from unauthorizedly and illegally using the copyrighted work owned by the plaintiff and illegally synchronizing, from distributing pirated copies of the same and also restrained from illegal uploading, storing, posting, communicating to the public, digitally transmitting the work held by the plaintiff as per document.
During the proceedings, the court perused the original and the alleged misused music CDs presented by the plaintiff.
“These materials prim facie establishes infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright in music system and same is made out. This court is convinced that object of granting an injunction would be defeated by delay if commissioner is not appointed to make local inspection” the judge observed.
Acting upon the interlocutory application seeking to authorize a technical expert to inspect, conduct an electronic audit, and preserve the infringing material available in social media, S N Venkateshmurthy, District System Administrator of Computer Section, Commercial Court, Bengaluru has been appointed as Local Commissioner to visit the defendants 1 to 3 website, conduct electronic audit and preserve the infringing materials available in the above social media and prepare an inventory of the same and store the same in the court’s system and separate CD.
The next hearing on the suit is fixed for November 21, 2022.
The plaintiffs have contended that the defendants infringed upon the statutory copyright owned and held by them by way of unauthorizedly and illegally using the sound records of the film KGF chapter 2.
Reacting to the development the Congress tweeted: “We have read on social media about an adverse order from a Bengaluru court against INC & BJY handles. We were neither made aware of nor were present at the court proceedings. No copy of the order has been received. We are pursuing all the legal remedies at our disposal.”
Ankit Mayank tweeted, “The same song was used by BJP handles on multiple occasions, but does judiciary have guts to order to block BJP handle?”
The same song was user by BJP handles on multiple occasions, but does judiciary have guts to order to block BJP handle? pic.twitter.com/UUrb19Nsco
— Ankit Mayank (@mr_mayank) November 7, 2022