Copyrights | Intellepedia

No Copyright in a Golf Swing of Ideas

In the case of Gurbaaz Pratap Singh Mann vs Kunwar Raghav Bhandari and Ors., the Delhi High Court looked at whether the defendants had copied the plaintiff’s protected expression in a golf format. It held that similarities related to ideas and game mechanics do not amount to infringement. It found that the defendants had not reproduced any protectable expression from the plaintiff’s work.

Copy Paste Creativity Fails the Originality Test

In the case of Bombay Metal Works (P) Limited vs Tara Singh Prop. R.S. Industries (Regd), a dispute arose over competing packaging designs for bicycle parts. The petitioner challenged the respondent’s copyright registrations on the ground that the designs were copied. The court looked at whether the impugned works were original and whether the registrations could stand.

No Euphoria for Pirates: Copyright infringement injunction against rogue websites

Banner with a purple neon city skyline, a judge’s gavel on the left, a hooded figure using a phone on the right, and the headline “NO EUPHORIA FOR PIRATES.”

The Delhi High Court granted an ex parte ad interim injunction in favor of HBO, to protect Euphoria from online piracy ahead of its India release. The court noted that rogue websites could cause immediate commercial harm and directed blocking measures against the identified websites.

TV9’s News Clips Fair Use or Copyright Abuse

In the case of TV9, namely Associated Broadcasting Company Limited v Google LLC and Others, the broadcaster faced multiple YouTube copyright strikes for using short clips of real world events in its news programmes. TV9 argued that the clips were minimal, used only to report current events, and in several instances came from licensed sources, while some disputed clips were alleged to be used without licence only in a limited and illustrative manner. The court examined whether that use crossed the line into infringement.

Employment First, IPL Later, Copyright Nowhere

Copyright Authorship and Moral Rights Dispute

In the case of Gaurav Garg v. Aly Morani & Ors., the dispute arose from claims over the IPL Awards event, its presentation, and related written material. The plaintiff said that he had developed the event, reduced it into writing, and was entitled to authorship credit, moral rights, and commercial benefits, but the court rejected those claims after examining the employment relationship, Section 17(c), Section 57, the nature of the material, and the MOU.

Copyright Lives On, Even Before Probate

In the case of Dev Sahitya Kutir Pvt Ltd v. Smt. Archana Debnath & Anr., the dispute arose from alleged publication and sale of copyrighted literary and artistic works of a deceased author after expiry of an earlier publishing arrangement. The publisher argued that the suit could not proceed because probate had not yet been granted and because an earlier suit had already been dismissed for default, but the court rejected both objections at the interim stage.

Images Copyright and AI Getty Vs. Stable Diffusion

In the case of Getty Images v Stability AI Ltd, Getty Images sued Stability AI, the developer of the Stable Diffusion generative AI model, alleging that the system had been trained on millions of copyrighted photographs from Getty Images’ websites. Getty Images argued that both the outputs generated by the AI system and the AI model itself infringed copyright. During the proceedings, Getty Images abandoned the claim relating to infringing outputs after the prompts used to generate those outputs were blocked. The High Court then examined whether the Stable Diffusion model itself could constitute an infringing copy and held that the model does not contain or store copies of Getty Images’ photographs and therefore cannot qualify as an infringing copy under UK copyright law.

When Chatbots Sing Songs AI Outputs and Copyright Liability

In the case of GEMA v OpenAI entities operating ChatGPT, the collecting society GEMA sued the operators of a generative AI chatbot for reproducing protected song lyrics through chatbot outputs. The court examined chatbot responses generated after simple prompts asking for song lyrics and compared them with the original lyrics represented by GEMA. The court held that the operators are liable for copyright infringement arising from such outputs, ordered them to refrain from reproducing the lyrics through the chatbot, directed them to disclose the extent of the infringing acts and revenue earned from them, and held them liable to compensate damages.

First Owner of Copyright in Film Music: Delhi HC in Saregama v Ilaiyaraja

Film reel and musical notes illustrating film music rights.

Section 17(b) and 17(c) of the Copyright Act, 1957 was applied by the Delhi High Court to treat the producer as the first owner of copyright in film works, absent an agreement to the contrary. Interim restraint was granted against unauthorised licensing of the works.

Shatrughan Sinha and the Legal Fight Against Digital Impersonation

The Shatrughan Sinha digital impersonation ruling confirms that personality rights are enforceable against AI-driven misuse and commercial exploitation in the digital age.