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High Court Of Delhi
EASTERN BOOK COMPANY - Appellant
Versus
NAVIN J.DESAI - Respondent
Interim Application 6978 of 2000
Decided On : 01/17/2001
The Court held that the plaintiff's law reports were not original literary works entitled to copyright protection under the Copyright Act, 1957. The Court found that the plaintiff's work consisted of reproducing judgments of the Supreme Court of India with certain additions and improvements, such as correcting typographical errors, adding commas and full stops, and giving paragraph numbers. The Court held that these changes were not sufficient to make the plaintiff's work an original literary work. The Court also held that the plaintiff could not claim copyright in the headnotes of the judgments, as they were either verbatim extracts from the judgments or did not exhibit an addition to the work that imparted a true and real value over and above that belonging to the text.
Fact of the Case:
The plaintiffs, who are engaged in the business of printing and publishing law reports, filed a suit against the defendants for infringement of copyright in their law reports. The plaintiffs claimed that they had copyright in the headnotes, the selection, manner of arrangement and presentation of the judgments in both printing and electronic form in the introductory line appended by them before each judgment, in the paragraph numbering introduced by the editorial staff, in the copy-edited portions of the judgments of the Supreme Court and in the style and form of printing adopted by them for publication of the judgments of Supreme Court of India in the law reports.
Finding of the Court:
The Court held that the plaintiff's law reports were not original literary works entitled to copyright protection under the Copyright Act, 1957. The Court found that the plaintiff's work consisted of reproducing judgments of the Supreme Court of India with certain additions and improvements, such as correcting typographical errors, adding commas and full stops, and giving paragraph numbers. The Court held that these changes were not sufficient to make the plaintiff's work an original literary work. The Court also held that the plaintiff could not claim copyright in the headnotes of the judgments, as they were either verbatim extracts from the judgments or did not exhibit an addition to the work that imparted a true and real value over and above that belonging to the text.
Issues: Whether the plaintiff's law reports were original literary works entitled to copyright protection under the Copyright Act, 1957.
Ratio Decidendi: The Court held that the plaintiff's law reports were not original literary works entitled to copyright protection under the Copyright Act, 1957. The Court found that the plaintiff's work consisted of reproducing judgments of the Supreme Court of India with certain additions and improvements, such as correcting typographical errors, adding commas and full stops, and giving paragraph numbers. The Court held that these changes were not sufficient to make the plaintiff's work an original literary work. The Court also held that the plaintiff could not claim copyright in the headnotes of the judgments, as they were either verbatim extracts from the judgments or did not exhibit an addition to the work that imparted a true and real value over and above that belonging to the text.
Final Decision: The Court dismissed the plaintiff's applications for injunction and allowed the defendant's application to vacate the interim orders passed earlier.
( 1 ) PLAINTIFFS are engaged in the business of printing and publishing of various books relating to the field of law. Plaintiffs claim to have expertise in the field of legal publishing and claim to be a respectable publishing group in India and abroad. The plaintiffs also claim to have copyright in around 500 titles. Besides having printed and published legal commentaries, digests and journals, the plaintiffs are also publishing law reports under the name and style of "supreme Court Cases, Supreme Court Cases (Criminal), Supreme Court Cases (Labour and Services) and Administrative Tribunal Cases", as also the Law Journals. "lucknow Law Times" and "current Central Legislations". The law reports being published under the name and style of "supreme Court Cases" (hereinafter referred to as the SCC) started its publication in 1969 and reports reportable and non-reportable judgments of the Supreme Court of India. The publication is allegedly used by virtually all the practitioners in the Supreme Court as well as practising in the High Courts and District Courts. The edition of the SCC is allegedly being distributed in about 567 cities in India and abroad. It is claimed that the Editorial Board of the SCC consists of eminent personalities in the legal field. Plaintiff No. 3 is reportedly undertaking the task of processing of judgments for reporting and preparing the headnotes and indices as well as the task of supervision of the composing, proof-reading and publishing by the publishers. It is claimed that for all these tasks, plaintiff No. 3 is paid royalty on the subscriptions collected and sale of back volumes by plaintiff No. 1.
( 2 ) THE plaintiffs have also allegedly published the data base package, available on CD-ROM for finding Supreme Court rulings on any point of law. This software is known as scc Online Supreme Court Case Finder and is easily compatible on most frequently used Microsoft Windows Programme. The "case Finder" includes over 84,000 case notes based on the head-notes published in the plaintiffs journal SCC and the pre-1969 digest notes prepared by plaintiff No. 3 and included in "the Complete Digest of Supreme Court Cases" in 16 Volumes, published by plaintiff No. 1. As a complementary product to the "case Finder 2000", plaintiff has also developed and released "supreme Court Cases Full Text on CD-ROM".
( 3 ) PLAINTIFFS have claimed copyright in the head-notes, in the selection, manner of arrangement and in the manner of presentation of the judgments in both printing and electronic form in the introductory line appended by them before each judgment which reads "the judgment of the Court was delivered by", in the paragraph numbering introduced by the editorial staff, in the copy-edited portions judgment of the Supreme Court and in the style and form of printing adopted by them for publication of the judgments of Supreme Court of India in the law reports. It is claimed that the head-notes comprise of two portions namely, the short note consisting of catch words written in bold and the long note comprised of a brief discussion of the facts and the relevant extracts from the judgment of the Court, It is alleged that the editors go through the entire judgment and draft the head-notes according to the various issues, propositions, statutes and provisions of the law involved which allegedly require considerable amount of skill, labour and expertise. The plaintiffs while are not claiming copyright in the text of the judgment have claimed copyright in the head-notes and in the final version which is finalised by them incorporating the various editorial and copy-editing inputs made by the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs claim that even if the head-notes were to be interpreted as abridgement of the text of the judgment, they were owners of the copyright in the head-notes as it was well-established that abridgements also constitute original literary works entitled to copyright protection. It is submitted
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