The plaintiff lacks authorship and entitlement to special rights under Section 57 of the Copyright Act due to being an employee; the employer owns rights to works created during employment.

JUDGMENT

TEJAS KARIA, J

1. The present Suit has been filed seeking a decree of permanent injunction restraining the Defendants from infringing the Author’s special right under Section 57 of the Copyright Act, 1957 (“Act”) and from conducting and / or broadcasting or permitting the broadcast of the event, “IPL Awards” (“Event”) and relief of punitive damages and rendition of accounts of profits and the costs.

FACTUALBACKGROUND:

2. In February 2008, the Plaintiff met Defendant No. 1, Mr. Aly Morani and Defendant No. 2, Mr. Mohomed Morani with a view to exploring the possibility of working together in mutual interest for the business of Defendant No. 3, M/s Cineyug Films Pvt. Ltd. of undertaking large scale and sustainable events such as IPL Awards, 2010 Commonwealth Games and DLF IPL Opening / Closing Ceremonies. As per the understanding between the Plaintiff and Defendant Nos. 1 to 3, the said events were undertaken by Cineyug Signature, which was a special division of Defendant No. 3 created jointly by Defendant No. 3 and the Plaintiff.

3. From March 2008 to October 2009, the Plaintiff was engaged by Cineyug Signature. The Plaintiff was designated and presented to the clients of Defendant No. 3 as the Vice President, Cineyug Signature. One of the major assignments that Defendant No. 3 asked the Plaintiff to work on was conceptualizing, creation, marketing and implementation of the Event.

4. The concept of the Event was developed by the Plaintiff and the same was put in writing by the Plaintiff in June 2008. Accordingly, the Plaintiff is the author of the literary work embodying the presentation and the written expression of the Event.

5. Vide e-mail dated 23.01.2009, an appointment with Mr. Lalit Modi was sought for presentation of the Event. On 13.02.2009, Defendant No. 2 provided some suggestions on the presentation for the Event. After carrying out the recommended changes, the final presentation was made ready on 20.02.2009.

6. On 24.02.2009, the Plaintiff along with Defendant Nos. 1 and 2 met with Mr. Lalit Modi, Chairman, DLF IPL and Mr. Sunder Raman, CEO, DLF IPL to discuss the Event, where the idea was duly appreciated and acknowledged. After initial discussions, the Cineyug Signature team led by the Plaintiff went into deeper planning of the Event and prepared ‘Detailed Concept Note & Feasibility Study’ with Financial and Imagery Benefits associated with the Event which were shared with Mr. Sundar Raman on 05.03.2009. Thereafter, there were several meetings, conversations and discussions to finalize the Event and its strategic and financial benefits to all stake holders for the entire month, and the concept of the Event was accepted in principle by the stakeholders at IPL.

7. On 06.04.2009, the Plaintiff was flown to South Africa by Cineyug Signature for further discussions and presentation on the Event. Between April, 2009 and May, 2009, the Plaintiff made detailed set of presentations to the executives of IPL at South Africa, which resulted in success of procuring the contract for Cineyug Signature to organize DLF IPL closing ceremony.

8. The broader context of the Event format, entertainment line-up, award categories, process etc. was accepted by IPL. However, on account of time constraints, the Event was def