42 cable, Net service providers can't screen Kaatrin Mozhi, says Madras HC
The Plaintiff has the exploitation rights of the said film under the provisions of Copyright Act.
Chennai: The Madras high court has restrained 42 cable and internet service providers from screening the Tamil film “Kaatrin Mozhi”, starring Jyotika, Vidaarth and others, scheduled to be released on November 16, 2018.
Justice M.Sundar granted the interim injunction on a suit filed by Creative Entertainers, producer of the film.
According to Vijayan Subramanian, counsel for the plaintiff, the plaintiff has produced several films. The Plaintiff’s latest venture was the cinematograph film titled “Kaatrin Mozhi”, directed by Radha Mohan. The plaintiff has invested substantial sums of money in the production of the said film and scheduled to be released in more than 250 screens worldwide including Chennai. The plaintiff has acquired all exploitation and distribution rights including theatrical rights, music rights, other rights including TV, internet, digital and home video and all rights were exclusive.
The Plaintiff has the exploitation rights of the said film under the provisions of Copyright Act. Various cable and internet services provided by various persons (Defendants 1-42) across the world were involved in activities of recording, cam cording and reproducing the audio songs, audio-visual clips, audio-visual songs and full cinematographic films that were screened in theatres and then copying/reproducing them through various mediumand distribute the same for selling at a meagre sum to the general public without any leave or authorisation of the production houses/copyright holders/rights holders such as the plaintiff, Vijayan Subramanian added.
He said the plaintiff reasonably apprehends that as and when the said film was released in theatres, such acts of piracy would also commence and websites as described would again mobilize to illegally copy, record, download, reproduce, transmit and communicate the said copyright protected said work to general public.
The Defendants have not entered into any license agreement with the plaintiff for communicating the movie and thus it amounts to infringement of plaintiff’s copyright under section 14 (1) (d) read with section 16 of Copyright Act, he added.