- (1.) Leave granted.
(2.) Respondent No. 1 brought a suit in O.S. No. 4792/98 in the Addl. City Civil Court at Bangalore on the following pleadings: "The plaintiff during the course of their business, were Willing of sound recording into audio cassettes of three titles viz., 'kallusakkare kolliro', 'maduve maduve maduve' and 'chinnanda hadugalu.' The copyrights of the songs containing in these three sound recording cassettes vest with the defendant No. 1. Accordingly, the plaintiffs, as contemplated under the Copyright Act, 1957 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') issued a notice as per sub-clause (ii) of Cl. (j) of sub-section (1) of S.52 of the Act on 16-5-1998 notifying their intention to record 1000 Nos. each of audio cassettes of the above three titles. The said letter was enclosed with three inlay cards and three demands of Rs. 1,500/- each towards the royalty payable in favour of the copyright owner i.e., the first defendant. The plaintiff has also informed the Registrar of Copyright Board, New Delhi on the same day notifying the same. The plaintiff waited for 15 days and later on recorded and released the above three titled sound recording in the form of audio cassettes in the open market and the cassettes have been circulated through Karnataka State. The first defendant belatedly on 8-6-1998 addressed a letter to the plaintiff expressing their regret and inability to permit the plaintiff to make version recordings of songs of above three titles and accordingly returned the demand drafts." 2A. Respondent No. 1 sought fro permanent injunction restraining the appellant from seizing the respondents the aforesaid three titled audio cassettes and for certain incidental reliefs and an application for temporary injunction was granted by the trial Court to the same effect. On appeal to the High Court, the said order was affirmed. Hence this appeal.
(3.) The trial Court and the High Court held that respondent No. 1 had complied with the requirements of S. 52(1) (j) of the Act read with Rule 21 of the Copyright Rules, 1958 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Rules') by issuing a notice of his intention to make a sound recording and has provided copies of all covers or labels with which the sound recordings are to be sold and has paid in the prescribed manner to the owner of Copyright in the work royalties of Rs. 1,500/- each in respect of all such sound recordings to be made by him and Rs. 1,500/- is the rate fixed by the Copyright Board in this behalf. The High Court accepted the arguments of respondent No. 1 that in the event of licence or consent is not given even after compliance of S. 52(1) (j) of the Act within 15 days, the licence is deemed to have been granted and the person producing the cassette after the expiry of 15 days is not said to have infringed Copyright. The High Court proceeded to further state that S. 52(1) (j) of the Act does not require prior consent from the owner of the Copyright and that the owner is entitled to royalty fixed and a notice of the intention of respondent No. 1 to make the cassettes. It is made clear that the intention of respondent No. 1 is not copying but making sound recording and in this case admittedly the musician is different, singer is different, only respondent No. 1 is using the lyrics owned by the appellant. The High Court noticed that S. 52 (1) (j) of the Act recognises the right of the Copyright owner and since respondent No. 1 was making an independent recording, the recording of respondent No.1 and that of the appellant are different. Quality of sound recording is also different from each other. Section 20 of the Act which gives the right to the owner for 60 years which is subject to the provisions of S. 20, respondent No. 1 having complied with the requirements of S. 52 (1) (j) of the Act, it has to be construed that there is a deemed provision of having given consent and, therefore, the trial Court was right in holding that sub-clauses (i) and (ii) of S. 52(1) (j) of the Act should be read disjunctively and not co-jointly and accepted this contention raised on behalf of respondent No. 1. The argument advanced based on S. 60 of the Act that if a person claiming to be the owner of Copyright in any work, by circulars, advertisements or otherwise, threatens any other person with any legal proceedings or liability in respect of any alleged infringement of the Copyright, any person aggrieved thereby may institute a declaratory suit that the alleged infringement to which the threats related was not in fact an infringement of any legal rights of the person making such threats and he can also obtain damages and that a suit of the present nature could not have been filed. This aspect also did not appeal either to the trial Court or the High Court.;