Tampering Source Code Without Permission And Freely Playing Audio Amounts To Copyright Infringement: Karnataka HC

The Karnataka High Court has refused to grant relief to Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh and Supriya Shrinate in a complaint and FIR registered by M. Naveen Kumar, manager of ‘MRT Music’ label alleging copyright infringement of song from the Kannada movie ‘KGF: Chapter 2’ in the promotional video and online campaign for the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’.

The FIR was filed for offences under Section 120-B, 403, 465 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), Section 63 of Copyright Act,1957 (Copyright Act) and Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act).

The Single Judge Bench of Justice M. Nagaprasanna observed that “The Congress reels are found on certain platforms which show at the bottom of the reel, that it is the original audio of the Congress and to the original audio it has a thumb name “Try it” which clearly shows that the audio was playable by the general public. If the petitioners had not meddled with the source code, they could not have tampered with the audio and replaced it with their audio. Tampering with the source code without permission and freely playing the audio would undoubtedly amount to the infringement of the copyright of the complainant. The petitioners appear to have taken the copyright of the complainant for granted and have tinkered and meddled with it”.

Senior Advocate Vikram Huilgo appeared for the Petitioner, whereas Senior Advocate S. Sriranga appeared for the Respondent.

After considering the submission and referring to the declaration that ‘This video is an intellectual property belonging to the Indian National Congress. Please seek prior permission before using any part of this video in any form which was found on every platform where the video was played, the Bench stated that “The declaration in any form would be illegal. This would be circumstantial enough to demonstrate that the Indian National Congress has tampered with the source code, and have replaced the song with their song and have portrayed the third petitioner (Rahul Gandhi) to be a hero of the song”.

The Bench however highlighted that portraying the third petitioner (Rahul Gandhi) as a hero in any of the videos cannot become a crime. But, the song that is played in the video, without seeking prior permission/agreement, does amount to violation/ infringement of copyright, of the complainant.

The Bench stated that it was a matter of evidence which had to be thrashed out in investigation, thus, the petition for quashing of the FIR was rejected.

The Bench stated that the Congress reels were found on certain platforms which showed at the bottom of the reel, that it was the original audio of the Congress and the original audio had a thumb name “Try it” which clearly showed that the audio was playable by the general public.

If the petitioners had not meddled with the source code, they could not have tampered with the audio and replaced it with their audio, concluded the Bench.

Cause Title: Jairam Ramesh and Ors. v. The State of Karnataka and Anr.

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