{"id":145568,"date":"2025-09-18T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T02:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/?p=145568"},"modified":"2025-09-18T07:37:40","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T02:07:40","slug":"board-game-copyright-infringement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/board-game-copyright-infringement\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Orders 10 Lakhs In Damages For Board Game Copyright Infringement"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5><strong>Factual Background<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Plaintiff Ashim Ghosh, an internationally recognized multimedia artist and author, created and published the Hindi word board game <em>ShabdKoshish<\/em> in 2000, with improved versions in 2001 and 2008. This game was resembled a Hindi version of Scrabble, and used letters and symbols printed on tiles and transparent tiles for forming Hindi words.<\/p>\n<p>The Defendant, Madrat Games, launched a similar Hindi word game called <em>Aksharit<\/em> in 2010, which the Plaintiff noticed in 2012. The Plaintiff alleged that <em>Aksharit<\/em> was a substantial reproduction\/adaptation of his copyrighted work <em>ShabdKoshish<\/em>, which infringed his rights under the Copyright Act, 1957.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Issues Before the Court<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ol>\n<li>Whether the Plaintiff was the rightful author\/owner of the literary works <em>ShabdKoshish<\/em> and <em>Shabd Games<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Whether the Defendant\u2019s <em>Aksharit<\/em> constituted a substantial adaptation\/reproduction of the plaintiff\u2019s works, resulting in infringement.<\/li>\n<li>Whether the Plaintiff was entitled to the claimed relief, including permanent injunction and damages.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h5><strong>Arguments from Each Party<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h6><strong>Plaintiff averred as follows: <\/strong><\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>He was the original author of <em>ShabdKoshish I\u2013III<\/em>, duly copyrighted and published. He had invested significant time, effort and money in creating and publishing the game and subsequent innovations in each version.<\/li>\n<li>Defendant\u2019s game<em> Aksharit<\/em> was a clear copy, using identical linguistic systems like universal matra tiles, half consonant tiles, and transparent diacritic tiles. Unlawful reproduction and commercial exploitation of the design, letter distribution, and gameplay without license, amounting to copyright infringement.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h6><strong>In response, Defendant argued as follows: <\/strong><\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li><em>Aksharit<\/em> was an independent and innovative creation for modern Hindi education through gameplay. Defendant company founders were qualified and expended considerable technical skills since 2006 to research and develop the game. Their contributions in marketing the game and expanding into software applications was recognized by many third parties.<\/li>\n<li>Defendant added elements such as transparent tiles, modified board size, various tools to address underutilized letters, and distinct markers for spaces.<\/li>\n<li>Plaintiff\u2019s claims lacked originality and fell outside the scope of copyright protection. Use of transparent tiles and other innovations could not be monopolized under copyright law. Defendant did not copy\u00a0either the instructions manual or the actual board, and therefore, there is no case of copyright infringement.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Court\u2019s Analysis<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>The Court noted that both the Plaintiff\u2019s and Defendant\u2019s games were heavily inspired by Scrabble. <em>ShabdKoshish<\/em> was an original and novel literary work, which was properly granted copyright protection. Further, the Plaintiff\u2019s extensive documentation, copyright certificates, and testimony established authorship and originality beyond doubt. (\u201c\u2026 nobody can claim copyright upon a mere idea but any novel and ingenious expression of the idea is certainly worth copyright protection.\u201d \u2013 para 13.1)<\/li>\n<li>Comparative analysis of letter and matra distributions showed striking similarities between <em>ShabdKoshish<\/em> and <em>Aksharit<\/em> (64%\u201369% overlap). Such similarities could not be mere coincidence. Transparent universal tiles, half consonant systems, and orthographic innovations used in <em>Aksharit<\/em> mirrored the Plaintiff\u2019s work.<\/li>\n<li>The Court found that Defendant\u2019s argument of independent development was not substantiated with sufficient evidence. Accordingly, the Court held that <em>Aksharit<\/em> was a substantial adaptation\/reproduction of <em>ShabdKoshish<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Final Decision<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>The Court granted the relief sought by the Plaintiff, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Permanent injunction restraining the Defendant and its agents from infringing, reproducing, or marketing in any form <em>Aksharit<\/em> or similar games based on <em>ShabdKoshish I\u2013III<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Damages of \u20b910,00,000 based on the Defendant\u2019s claimed sales of the infringing game, though the Plaintiff had not provided direct evidence of harm.<\/li>\n<li>Costs of the suit.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>Citation:<\/strong> <\/em><em>Ashim Ghosh vs. M\/s MadRat Games Pvt. Ltd., [CS No. 31\/2021], Delhi District Court, on 11<sup>th<\/sup> September 2025. Available at: <a title=\"https:\/\/indiankanoon.org\/doc\/157867244\/\" href=\"https:\/\/indiankanoon.org\/doc\/157867244\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/indiankanoon.org\/doc\/157867244\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Authored by Ms. Ashwini Arun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Delhi District Court awarded 10 lakhs in damages to the creator of ShabdKoshish for copyright infringement by the board game Aksharit. This judgment reinforces the significance of originality and the legal remedies available for copyright holders in India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145571,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":120,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[12296,12294,31,6224,1043,5,6521,12295],"class_list":["post-145568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-intellectual-property","tag-aksharit","tag-board-game-copyright","tag-copyright-infringement","tag-delhi-district-court","tag-indian-copyright-law","tag-intellectual-property","tag-legal-case-analysis","tag-shabdkoshish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145568"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145570,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145568\/revisions\/145570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}