The year 2014 witnessed a series of significant copyright infringement suits across Indian and international courts. The cases ranged from Bollywood films and Hollywood productions to popular music, video games, and comic book characters. The following is a survey of the major disputes that defined copyright litigation in 2014.<\/p>\n
Activist Sampat Pal Devi of the Gulabi Gang challenged the release of the multi-starrer film Gulaab Gang before the Delhi High Court. Sampat Pal Devi initially obtained a stay order, which was subsequently vacated by the division bench of the Delhi High Court.<\/p>\n
Prior to the release of Bhootnath Returns, starring Amitabh Bachchan and produced by Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, and Ravi Chopra, with co-producers Ajay Kapoor and Sushant Supriya, the writer of a short story titled Bhootnath filed proceedings before the Delhi High Court. The writer alleged that the film was a copy of his work, which had been published in 2007 in the Hindi magazine Aaj Kal.<\/p>\n
In 2011, Rebecca Francescatti filed a lawsuit against Lady Gaga, claiming that Gaga’s hit single Judas from the album Born This Way had been copied from Francescatti’s 1999 song Juda. After three years of litigation, US District Judge Marvin E. Aspen held that Francescatti had failed to prove that the two songs were sufficiently similar. The Judge observed that:<\/p>\n
the Francescatti song and Gaga song are so utterly dissimilar that reasonable minds could not differ as to a lack of substantial similarity between them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Although the near-identical titles of both songs were acknowledged, the Court held that there was insufficient evidence to establish that the Gaga song had captured the total concept and feel of Francescatti’s song Juda.<\/p>\n
Dhoom 3<\/h2>\n
Shortly before its Sony Entertainment Television premiere, the makers of Dhoom 3 were sued by Mansoob Haider, a professional film script writer, for copyright infringement. Haider, as plaintiff, alleged that the film’s storyline infringed his script titled Once, a murder-themed series. Although the plaintiff sought only to have his name included in the film’s credits in the main suit, he subsequently filed a notice of motion seeking an interim injunction. The Hon’ble Judge held that the plaintiff failed on all three counts and that no prima facie case for the grant of interim relief had been made out. The court held that the two works were entirely different, each original in its own way, and that Dhoom 3 was not and could not possibly be a copy of Once. Mere use of well-established and commonly used motifs, themes, or elements did not confer any right against a rival work. To discourage frivolous copyright claims, the plaintiff was fined a token amount of INR 1.<\/p>\n
Michelle Phan v. Ultra Records<\/h2>\n
YouTube fashion personality Michelle Phan was sued by Electronic Dance Music labels Ultra Records and Ultra International Music Publishing. The plaintiffs alleged that Phan’s beauty videos infringed their copyrights in nearly 50 instances by using artists’ tracks and compilations without a licence, and that Phan continued to infringe wilfully despite being informed of the absence of authorisation. The plaintiffs sought an injunction and either maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each infringed work or unspecified damages.<\/p>\n
Lionsgate v. Expendables-3 Pirates<\/h2>\n
A DVD-quality print of Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables 3 was leaked online three weeks before its scheduled theatrical release. Approximately two weeks after the pirated copy appeared, Lionsgate was granted a Temporary Restraining Order against several torrent sites hosting the film. The Order prohibited persons associated with those sites from infringing Lionsgate’s copyrights or from participating in any activity promoting such infringement, including hosting, linking to, distributing, reproducing, performing, selling, offering for sale, or making the pirated copy available for download or streaming. The Order also directed financial organisations, including banks and payment processors funding the defendants, to cease such transfers on receipt of the Order.<\/p>\n
Lindsay Lohan v. Rockstar Games<\/h2>\n
Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. and Rockstar Games, makers of the video game Grand Theft Auto V, were sued by Lindsay Lohan for the alleged unauthorised use of her likeness and persona. Lohan claimed that the in-game character Lacey Jonas was based on her persona and cited references to her role in Mean Girls, paparazzi pursuits, and a West Hollywood hotel where she had resided. Lohan alleged that the character constituted an unauthorised commercial use of her image in violation of New York Civil Rights Law \u00a7\u00a750-51, which prevents the use of a name, portrait, picture, or voice within New York for advertising or trade purposes without prior written consent.<\/p>\n
Celebrity Photo Hacking Incident<\/h2>\n
In 2014, private photographs of numerous female actresses, models, and athletes were obtained without authorisation from their Apple accounts and published online. The episode raised wider questions about the effectiveness of digital copyright protection and the adequacy of cloud storage security measures.<\/p>\n
Eight Mile Style v. New Zealand National Party<\/h2>\n
Eminem’s Detroit-based publishing company, Eight Mile Style, filed copyright infringement proceedings in the High Court at Wellington against the New Zealand National Party. The company alleged that the party used music from Eminem’s Grammy and Academy Award-winning song Lose Yourself in a political advertising campaign for Prime Minister John Key without obtaining Eminem’s permission.<\/p>\n
Roger Dean v. James Cameron<\/h2>\n
A New York City judge dismissed the copyright infringement suit filed by British artist William Roger Dean against James Cameron. Dean alleged that Cameron had copied fourteen original works of artwork, including his painting Floating Islands, which Dean claimed inspired the Hallelujah Mountains of the film Avatar. He further cited paintings of naturally occurring stone arches and flying creatures as additional evidence of copying. The complaint sought USD 50 million in damages, alleging that the similarities of each work were substantial, continuing, and direct so as to rule out accidental copying. The court dismissed the claim.<\/p>\n
Marvel v. Kirby Heirs<\/h2>\n
Disney-owned Marvel resolved a long-running dispute with the heirs of Jack Kirby, the artist credited with the co-creation of characters including the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, the Mighty Thor, Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, Ant-Man, Nick Fury, and the Rawhide Kid. The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York had held in July 2011 that Kirby’s works were works made for hire, a decision affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in August 2013. The Kirby Heirs filed a petition for review before the US Supreme Court on March 21, 2014. The petition was subsequently withdrawn following an amicable settlement between Marvel and the Kirby Heirs reached on September 26, 2014.<\/p>\n
Sherlock Holmes and the Public Domain<\/h2>\n
On November 3, 2014, the US Supreme Court clarified that the character of Sherlock Holmes had passed into the public domain. In July 2014, Justice Elena Kagan had dismissed an Emergency Petition filed by the Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. seeking to block publication of a new collection of stories based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective. The Estate had argued that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were dynamic literary characters who developed throughout the canon, and had historically required payment of a licence fee for any use of the characters. The Supreme Court’s clarification marked the end of that arrangement.<\/p>\n
Rajinikanth’s Lingaa<\/h2>\n
The Tamil film Lingaa, starring Rajinikanth, faced a plagiarism allegation from aspiring filmmaker K R Ravi Rathinam, who claimed the film copied his unreleased Tamil film Mullai Vaanam 999. Rathinam filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court. Justice M Venugopal of the Madras High Court dismissed the petition, holding that the dispute was a private matter that could only be addressed through civil or criminal proceedings and not through the exercise of writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution.<\/p>\n
Disclaimer<\/h2>\n
This article is for general information and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified attorney before acting on any matter discussed here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The post offers an analytical review of major copyright infringement suits in 2014, especially in the entertainment sector. Key cases and judicial outcomes are discussed with an emphasis on legal clarity and accurate reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":46,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[6984,6986,12841,486,51,7197,1226],"class_list":["post-17775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intellectual-property","category-media-and-entertainment-law","tag-2014-legal-cases","tag-copyright-disputes","tag-copyright-infringement-suits","tag-delhi-high-court","tag-entertainment-law-2","tag-film-copyright","tag-public-domain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17775","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=17775"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149747,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17775\/revisions\/149747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}