Justice SC Gupte restrained the YouTube LLC, a Delaware Limited Liability company having principal place of business in California, USA, while hearing a suit filed by IIFWA through its signatory Ketan Mehta (director of movies such as Mangal Pandey, Rang Rasiya and Mirch Masala).
In a relief for Indian Independent Filmmakers Worldwide Association (IIFWA), the Bombay high court has restrained YouTube from "exhibiting, communicating, distributing, storing, caching, transmitting in any manner" the infringing cinematographic film of second season of "IIFWA Masterclass" till further orders.
Justice SC Gupte restrained the YouTube LLC, a Delaware Limited Liability company having principal place of business in California, USA, while hearing a suit filed by IIFWA through its signatory Ketan Mehta (director of movies such as Mangal Pandey, Rang Rasiya and Mirch Masala). IIFWA alleged that clips of the first episode of the second season of "IIFWA Masterclass" were uploaded without their permission.
While issuing the interim restraining order against YouTube, the HC observed: "Prima-facie case of copyright infringement is made out by the Plaintiff (IIFWA). In the premises, there will be an ad-interim relief in terms of prayer clauses (a) and (b) against the Defendants (YouTube)."
IIFWA had sought that till the final order form the HC, YouTube, its content partners be restrained from "exhibiting, communicating, distributing, storing, caching, transmitting" their video. It had also sought that YouTube and its partners be directed to expeditiously "remove and/or block any and all references to materials and content which fall within the Plaintiff's (IIFWA) copyrights, and any stored, cached or embedded copies of links which will enable copyright infringement of the plaintiffs content."
The HC has also issued notice to YouTube and the unknown partners who have uploaded the video. IIFWA were represented by counsels LM Jenkins and Jamshed Mistry. Despite earlier notice by the plaintiff, YouTube was not represented by any counsel.
According to the suit, IIFWA was set up to promote, support and nurture independent cinema by Indian filmmakers and filmmakers of Indian origin anywhere in the world.
In 2014, IIFWA brought out the concept of a non profit project called the "IIFW Masterclass" as an initiative to share knowledge acquired by filmmakers over their professional journeys with other practicing filmmakers and film enthusiasts.
In the first season, the 11 internationally acclaimed filmmakers who contributed were Shekhar Kapoor, Mira Nayar, Danny Boyle, Yash Chopra, Ramesh Sippy, Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Subhash Ghai, Mahesh Bhatt, Prakash Jha and Aparna Sen.
The live events were recorded, and after professional editing and packaging, the shows were televised as a "cinematographic film" on TV channel National Geographic. IIFW is in the process to convert this material in a book form.
They recorded the first episode of the second season with director Raju Hirani. IIFW had tied up with various advertisers, producers, directors and television channels to broadcast the second season, states the petition.
IIFWA said they were astonished to find that 'full infringing recordings' of the first interview of season 2 was uploaded and broadcast all over YouTube. The video shows the name of the author as "www.bollywooduncut.com".
The petition claimed that despite their attempts, they were unable to get contact details of the said website.
It has sought that the video be taken down from the site. Additionally, it seeks that YouTube may disclose on oath the identities and contact details of the content provider and uploader, ie, the proprietor / owner of www.bollywooduncut.com.
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