The Delhi High Court has taken on record a report submitted by Arul Scaria, associate professor of law and LLM Chair at National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, that held use of music or audio recordings during marriage ceremonies as not a copyright infringement. The court, however, did not rule on the legal issue in the suit.
There has been a constant tussle between copyright owners and event management companies about the payment of royalties to play music at weddings. One such suit -- where a copyright collective engaged in issuance of licenses of songs for performance or communication had filed a case against an event management company that provides DJ services at weddings -- had come up before the Delhi High Court. The plaintiff had filed the case against the company, which had argued that they were exempted under Section 52 (1) (za) of the Copyright Act of 1957, from taking any license to play the sound recordings which belonged to the collective.
As the case had many far-reaching implications, Justice Pratibha M. Singh had appointed Dr. Scaria as an expert to prepare a comprehensive report on the issue. In his report, he informed the court that “use of music as part of marriage ceremonies and any festivities associated with marriage is one of such instances wherein the court may have to engage in a broad reading of the provision for the wider social benefit, thereby striking a proper balance between the rights of copyright owners and the rights of the users/society in using those works.”
Section 52 (1) (za) states that the use of certain copyrighted works for official ceremonies and bona fide religious ceremonies is not an act of copyright infringement. It also provides an explanation that “religious ceremonies” includes marriage processions and any festivities associated with marriage.
Dr. Scaria, further said, “... this provision (Sec. 52(1) (za)] has enormous significance on that front. Any attempt to extort money during such events is a misuse of the copyright law.”
However, Dr. Scaria also said that the public, artists and other stakeholders should be aware that if the copyrighted work is used in any public performances where it cannot be shown that the usage is covered under the exceptions provided by Section 52(1) (za), then generally, it means that permission or license, need to be taken from the copyright holders who own the work.
The court, which summarised the observations of Dr. Scaria, did not go into merits of the suit as the two parties had “resolved the disputes amicably.” The court said in its final observations, “Let the written submissions filed by Dr. Scaria be taken on record and be tagged along with the electronic record of the present suit. It is made clear that this Court has not considered the merits of the matter and is not ruling on the legal issue, which has been raised in the present suit.”
