The two companies had entered into a non-exclusive agreement on July 19, 2019, which allowed News Nation to broadcast and exploit audio visual songs clips, scenes and dialogue clips owned by Shemaroo Entertainment on its channels from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2022.
The agreement was terminated in August 2020 at the instance of the defendants. However, they reportedly continued broadcasting audio visual songs, clippings and scenes of the plaintiff’s copyrighted cinematographic films on their channels.
Despite being alerted of these infringements by Shemaroo, News Nation allegedly refused to pay damages and instead defended its use of the content by citing the principles of fair use and de minimis (lacking importance).
As a result, the plaintiff filed an infringement suit, claiming that the defendants were not entitled to the said defence. They prayed that the defendants be refrained from utilising its content.
Advocate Rashmin Khandekar representing Shemaroo, argued that the defendant having previously obtained a licence for exploitation of the plaintiff’s content for a fee, cannot be a ground to claim that the exploitation of the content after the agreement was terminated. It was contended that the defendant cannot argue that use of plaintiff’s content is ‘fair dealing’ and deserves to be ignored under the principle of de minimis non curat lex.
Advocate Aman Kacheria representing News Nation argued that the plaintiff’s information was disseminated by the defendant as a responsible news organisation in the course of its regular and ordinary business of reporting news and other programmes.
He contended that the defendant’s use of the plaintiff’s content was legal under Section 52 of the Copyright Act because it fell under the doctrine of ‘fair dealing.’
He submitted that the instant action was barred by the principle of de minimis non curat lex because the defendant had only utilised the plaintiff’s material for a very short period and with a good purpose.
The High Court noted that the plaintiff had accepted the request for termination of the license agreement upon certain terms, which were affirmed by the defendant.
“It was, inter alia, provided that using the plaintiff’s content without having a valid license would constitute infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright,” the single-judge stated.
The burden of proving that the content was utilised for the purpose of reporting current events is on the defendant, the Court said.
However, the defendant did not submit any evidence to support its claim that the content was used as a part of its ordinary and regular course of business and reporting news and programmes, the Court ruled.
Hence, the defendant’s acts could not be excused since it was exploiting the plaintiff’s content in a manner that was provided by the terminated agreement.
“It would be rather difficult to draw an inference that the breach of the obligation on the part of defendant, especially in the context of the prior exploitation of the plaintiff’s content under license regime, would amount to fair dealing and can be condoned on the basis of principle of de minimis,” it said.
The Court, therefore, granted interim relief in favour of Shemaroo.
Source: Barandbench
