COPYRIGHT CASES

MOHALLA TECH PVT. LTD, V BYTEDANCE INC. AND ORS., CS(COMM)

MOHALLA TECH PVT. LTD, V BYTEDANCE INC. AND ORS., CS(COMM) 1

Indic-language social network ShareChat, recently filed a lawsuit against Bytedance, which was dismissed by the Delhi HC. Sharechat filed this lawsuit against the Chinese social media platform for copying ShareChat’s design and infringing copyright, thereby creating unfair competition. Bytedance had changed the name of its platform Helo, to ‘Share, Follow & Chat’ on the Google Play store, which continued only for a brief period, following which Bytedance was compelled to change its design and user interface due to the lawsuit filed by ShareChat. ShareChat has alleged that since Helo launched in India, it has been touted as a copycat of ShareChat as both the apps used to have identical categories like Ladies’ Corner, Lifestyle, Jokes, WhatsApp Status, Love Bytes, Wishes, Quotes, and others

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COPYRIGHT

PATANJALI AYURVED LIMITED & ANR. VS. GOOGLE LLC. & ORS., CS

In a suit filed by Patanjali Ayurved Limited and Baba Ramdev, the Delhi High Court has directed YouTube to take down a video which allegedly defamed Patanjali products from YouTube. Patanjali and Baba Ramdev had sought a permanent injunction against the video, alleging that it contained several defamatory, disparaging and threatening statements against Patanjali Products. They also sought an injunction against Google, YouTube and Facebook to take down the video and all links to the video for both Indian and international domains. Besides directing YouTube to take down the video, the court also directed Facebook to ensure that links to the video are no longer available on its platform. The court also observed that the video not only violated the law due to its explicit and derogatory language, but also violated the self-prescribed guidelines of these platforms. This follows an earlier order by the court directing the removal of the video from the Indian domains of these platforms. The court also directed YouTube to provide available information of the person uploading the video, to enable Patanjali to take further action.

PATANJALI AYURVED LIMITED & ANR. VS. GOOGLE LLC. & ORS., CS

SUPER CASSETTES INDUSTRIES LTD. VS MY SPACE INC. 2011 (48) P

Super Cassettes Industries Limited/ T- Series filed a suit against MySpace alleging that it was infringing its copyright by allowing its users to upload and share T series copyrighted work without permission. My space in defense said that they had no knowledge of infringement of copyright.
The Delhi High Court held that had held MySpace was liable for the infringement despite it having no specific knowledge of the infringement.MySpace, liable to take down copyright infringed content within 36 hours of “actual knowledge” of the infringement and granted injunction to T-series against MySpace.

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SHAMOIL AHMAD KHAN V. FALGUNI SHAH & ORS. COMMERCIAL IP SUIT

The plaintiff wrote a story titled ‘Singardaan’ in Urdu and alleged that the defendants’ web series under the identical title, ‘Singardaan’ launched on the App ‘Ullu’ and available on YouTube copied his story’s plot, narrative, characters and title. Main issue before the court was whether the copy of partial content, plot or story line and its presentation in a different format be the subject matter of copyright?
The Bombay High Court decided to restrict the Defendants to make any further adaptation of plaintiff’s story, and considered that the plaintiff should be given compensation in terms of adequate remuneration or a share of the profit made by the defendant, instead of granting a temporary injunction to withdraw the work.

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Bennett, Coleman & Company Limited & Anr. Vs. Mr. Ajay Kumar &Ors., CS(COMM) 21/2019

The Delhi High Court has passed an order restraining the owners of the website www.sscias.com from using content from the ‘Times of India’(TOI) and the ‘Economic Times’(ET) on their website. This order requires the website owners to stop using, advertising, promoting, and making available for download any content from the TOI and ET newspapers.

The court passed this order in a suit alleging trademark infringement, copyright infringement and unfair competition, filed by Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd (BCCL), which owns TOI and ET. BCCL had filed the suit against the sscias website for providing electronic copies of the two leading newspapers before 6 am, which affected the papers’ readership, circulation and advertising revenues.

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