In a significant ruling, the Madras High Court on Friday held that a commonly used word kept as the title of a movie cannot be protected under the law of copyright. It also ruled that registration of titles with private bodies such as Tamil Film Producers Council and Film and Television Producers Guild of South India would not be binding upon film producers who were not members of such associations.
Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose passed the order while allowing an intra court appeal preferred by Lyca Productions. The first Division Bench set aside an interim injunction granted by a single judge of the High Court early this week restraining the production house from using the title ‘Karu,’ which means foetus literally or scientifically and means concept or theme figuratively.
“A conjoint reading of Sections 13 and 16 of the Copyright Act of 1957 makes it clear that what is protected under the Act is the work which is relatable to a cinematograph film, that is to say, the visual recording, including sound recording, produced by process analogous to cinematography. The title, which may be a commonly used word, cannot be protected under the law of copyright,” the first Bench said.
Section 13 makes it clear that there was no copyright in a title. It was only the entire work which was protected by copyright. A title could not be construed as an original literary work since it does not qualify for being described as work. “It is incomplete in itself and refers to the work that follows... In the instant case, it is not in dispute that there is no originality in adoption of the title Karu which is a common Tamil word,” the judges added.
Penning the judgment, the Chief Justice pointed out that neither the producer’s council nor the guild were registered copyright societies under Section 33 of the Act and therefore incompetent to administer any right in any work including cinematograph films. She also said that there was no statutory basis for the reported trade practice followed in the film industry of registering film titles with these two bodies.
The Division Bench also agreed with the appellant’s counsel PL. Narayanan that Lyca Productions was not a member of the guild and therefore registration of the title Karu by producer J. Manimaran of J.S. Screens in 2011 would not preclude it from naming its movie as Lyca’s Karu. “Had the appellant and plaintiff been members of the same organisation, they may have contractually been bound by the internal rules and regulations of the organisation,” it added.
Stating that the single judge had granted the injunction after apparently being swayed by the fact that Lyca was a large production house unlike J.S. Screens, the Bench said: “Sympathy for a weaker party to a litigation cannot outweigh the law.”
Published - February 23, 2018 11:40 pm IST
