Third party cannot claim copyright on person's life story unless he has already published a work about it: Punjab & Haryana High Court

The Punjab and Haryana High Court recently ruled that facts and events from the life of a person cannot be a subject matter of copyright unless the person claiming copyright violation has already accomplished/ created a work depicting the life story [T-Series v. Dreamline Reality Movies]..Thus, a person claiming copyright violation over a life story can assert the same only if he or she has already accomplished a work, be it a book or any other literary work, and the infringing work is based on the already existing work.Justice Rajbir Sehrawat observed that since there cannot be any question of copyright or reproducing the work unless it exists, no infringement can be claimed.“Mere existence of certain facts constituting a human conduct or chain of events signifying a human behaviour, as such, cannot be made a subject matter over which claim of copyright can be asserted by any person,” the bench said..It also remarked that mere existence of an idea or existence of fact or set of facts without involvement of talent, intelligence or effort by a person in converting the same into a work cannot be called a ‘work’ under the Copyright Act.The Court made the observations while dealing with an appeal filed by music label and film production company T-Series in relation to the movie ‘Dear Jassi’ which is inspired by the murder of Indo-Canadian woman Jaswinder Kaur alias Jassi Sidhu in 2000..A civil court had last year restrained the T-Series from producing and releasing the movie till a final decision in the case filed by Punjab-based Dreamline Reality Movies is rendered.It was Dreamline's claim that it had purchased the rights to make a film from Sukhwinder Singh @ Mithu, who was the husband of Jassi Sidhu.T-Series moved the High Court challenging the interim injunction. They submitted that the movie was made after purchasing the rights to make the film on the basis of a book written by journalist Fabian Dawson.In response, the case put up by Dreamline Reality Movies was that since Singh happens to be the husband of Jassi Sidhu, his life story is also involved. Therefore, it was contended that T-Series could not have made the movie without his permission .The High Court said that the life story of Singh cannot be subject matter of copyright, though it may entitle him to some protections under some other law and for different purposes.It noted that Singh has not created any work or authorship or creation on his life story. Thus, the Court concluded that he did not have any right even to assign the copyright to Dreamline Reality Movies.On the other hand, the Court found that T-Series had purchased the right to make the film on an existing book which incorporates the story of Jassi Sidhu and incidentally the life story of Singh.“As such the appellants have got a legal right to make a film on the said book,” Justice Sehrawat said..The Court also took note that the ‘honour killing’ of Jassi Sidhu and non-acceptance of her marriage by her family was part of the court records in Canada in the extradition proceedings as well as the trial court proceedings in Indian courts.It further remarked that the aspect of her killing was also subject matter of publications in media and social media.For this reason as well, Singh cannot legitimately claim any copyright over the love story and the consequent murder, the Court said..The Court further found the prayer before the district court was to restrain the T-Series from making a film on the life story of Jassi Sidhu and not on the life story of Singh.In this context, the Court said that Jassi Sidhu had not left any publishing or unpublished literary work over which any legal heir could have claimed a copyright. .The Court also considered the argument regarding Singh’s right to privacy. In this regard, the Court said the Supreme Court has amply clarified that right to privacy is not an absolute right. On a related argument that Singh has a right to commercially exploit his privacy under which he had sold the rights to Dreamline Reality Movies, the Court opined that such contention takes away the case beyond the purview of the Copyright Act.It observed that such right to sell privacy for commercial exploitation can be claimed only as a ‘celebrity right’ or ‘publicity right’ by a person who claims to have acquired the status of celebrity and a distinct identity having commercial goodwill..In the present case, the Court opined that neither had Singh claimed any celebrity status nor was such assertion made by Dreamline Reality Movies. The Court in conclusion found that there was no prima facie case for grant of the interim injunction by the civil court..It also reasoned that since the movie would result in generation of money, it cannot be said that the Dreamline Reality Movies would suffer irreparable loss if the exhibition of the film is not restrained.Thus, the Court set aside the district court’s interim order and allowed the appeal moved by T-Series..Senior Advocate Amit Jhanji with Advocates Abhinav Sood, Amit Naik, Deepal Deshmukh, Madhu Gadodia, Anmol Gupta and Achintya Soni represented the T-SeriesSenior Advocate Sumeet Mahajan with Advocates Saksham Mahajan and Sachdeva represented the Dreamline Reality Movies[Read Judgment]