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Synopsis

Additional City Civil Judge Latha Kumari M of the Bangaluru Civil Court on Monday directed Twitter to temporarily block Twitter handles of Indian National Congress (INC) and Bharat Jodo for ‘illegally’ using sound records of the film KGF Chapter-2 owned by the MRT Music.

The court was hearing a copyright infringement suit filed by MRT Music against the INC, Bharat Jodo (Twitter handle), and others for illegally using KGF Chapter-2’s music in the videos uploaded by them on their microblogging platforms which included, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, and Facebook.

The court ordered ex parte ad interim injunction against the defendants from unauthorizedly and illegally using the copyrighted work owned by the plaintiff and illegally synchronizing, from distributing pirated copies of the same and also restrained from illegal uploading, storing, posting, communicating to the public, digitally transmitting the work held by the plaintiff till the next date.

The court also directed Twitter to take down three tweets that were posted by the Congress Party’s handle @INCIndia. The court further directed Twitter to block the Twitter handles of the Indian National Congress (@INCIndia) and Bharat Jodo (@BharatJodo) till the next date of hearing.

Court noted that if the same is encouraged the plaintiff company which is in the business of acquiring cinematography films, songs, music albums, etc., will be put to “irreparable injury” and the same would also lead to encouraging the “piracy” at large.

“I have carefully considered all documents produced along with the plaint also the CD produced by the plaintiff by playing the same in the court system. Plaintiff has specifically produced a CD showing the side-by-side file i.e., the original version of his copyrighted work with that of the illegally synchronized version. These prima facie materials available before this court at this stage establish that if the same is encouraged plaintiff who is in the business of acquiring cinematography films, songs, music albums, etc., will be put to irreparable injury and further same leads to encouraging piracy at large”, the court stated.

The court appointed S.N. Venkateshmurthy, District System Administrator of Computer Section, Commercial Court, Bengaluru, as a local commissioner to visit the defendants' websites, conduct an electronic audit, and preserve the infringing materials available in the aforementioned social media, as well as prepare an inventory of the same and store it in this court's system and separate CD.

Accordingly, the court posted the matter for November 21, 2022, for further hearing. 

Case Title: M/s MRT Music v. The Indian National Congress & Others