Court restrains TV channels from telecasting film awards

A court here has restrained local television channels from telecasting Filmfare Awards South, 2014, which featured live performances to songs from Telugu film ‘Race Gurram’ and Tamil flick ‘Thalapathi’, on the grounds of copyright violation.

 The 18th Additional City Civil Court gave the order recently after Bangalore-based Lahari Recording Company sought an injunction to stop the telecast of Filmfare Awards South ceremony by private television channels.

The ceremony, held in Chennai on July 12, had a live performance of songs and dance from ‘Race Gurram’ and ‘Thalapathi.’ Actor Shruti Haasan gave the performance. 

Lahari moved the court seeking an injunction banning the telecast, distribution and display of the recorded version of the award ceremony. The company contended that it would suffer huge losses if television channels were allowed to telecast the programme.

Counsel for Lahari, Lakshmi Iyengar, submitted that as per rules, the organisers and others were required to obtain a copyright even for live performance from the rightful owners but had failed to do so. 

The counsel claimed that the company issued notices to the organisers and others seeking compensation but the television channels still went ahead and telecast the programme by editing the said songs.

Further, they uploaded the entire unedited programme on their websites as well as on YouTube, which amounted to violation of the copyright. To buttress the claim, its counsel showed the programme on a laptop computer to the court. 

The court observed that there was a prima facie case for grant of ex parte ad interim temporary injunction, and granted the prayer. “If the defendants are allowed to continue with the programme on their channels, the plaintiff will be put to great loss, which cannot be compensated in terms of money, and the very purpose of granting injunction will be defeated by delay.” 

In its order, the court said, “The defendants, their servants, representatives and agents are restrained from recording, distributing, broadcasting or otherwise publishing any music lyrics in the plaintiff’s repertoire or communicating the sound recording of the plaintiff in any manner to the public by playing the cassettes or CDs containing sound recording in their show as to infringe upon the plaintiff’s copyright over the film songs.”