Supreme Court Issues Notice On Govindacharya's Plea Regarding Copyright Of Livestreamed Sessions Of The Court

The Supreme Court has issued notice on K N Govindacharya's plea that private platforms like YouTube cannot be granted the copyright of the livestreamed sessions of the Supreme Court.

K N Govindacharya is a former leader of the Bhartiya Janata Party.

The Bench of Chief Justice U U Lalit and Justice Bela M Trivedi issued notice to the Registry of the Supreme Court and the Center on the limited prayer of safeguarding the copyright of the webcasted content. The notice is returnable on November 28, 2022.

The Supreme Court began live-streaming limited to Constitution Bench proceedings on September 27 for the first time, in connection with the hearing of appeals challenging the reservation for the Economically Weaker Sections and other cases of constitutional importance.

The Court had earlier said that these are initial stages and the Court will have its own platforms to live stream the proceedings.

The plea demands that a special agreement may be made with Youtube for safeguarding the copyright over live streaming and archived judicial proceedings.

As per the terms of Youtube, if proceedings are webcasted, YouTube also gets copyright. It was argued that the copyright cannot be surrendered. The 2018 judgment of the Supreme Court on live streaming has held that material recorded and broadcasted shall vest exclusively with the Apex Court.

Advocate Virag Gupta, appearing for Govindacharya, had on September 26 mentioned the plea for urgent listing. He referred to the terms of the use of YouTube and had said this private platform also gets the copyright of the proceedings if they are webcast on it.