Delhi High Court upholds order deeming Satyajit Ray as first owner of copyright in Bengali film Nayak

The Delhi High Court has upheld a single-judge’s ruling that legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray is the first owner of the copyright in the 1966 Bengali film Nayak because he wrote the screenplay for the movie..Justices Yashwant Varma and Tushar Rao Gedela said that Section 17 of the Copyright Act clearly applies in this case and that the copyright in the said screenplay would vest in the author of the literary work, in this case, Satyajit Ray.“While the plaintiff / appellant may have been the producer of the film “Nayak”, it could not have possibly claimed a supervening right in the screenplay in light of the clear language and intent of Section 13(4) of the Act. Once it is recognised that the copyright existed in the author of the screenplay, any right which the plaintiff/appellant could claim in the cinematographic work would not have either impacted or diluted the right of the author of the screenplay," the order said. .On May 23, 2023, Justice C Hari Shankar had come to a similar conclusion and said that Ray had the right to novelise the screenplay. The Court added that after Ray's demise, this right could be assigned by his son and others on whom such right devolved.The Court, therefore, rejected a plea by the producers of the film, RDB and Co (plaintiff), who had sought to restrain publishing house HarperCollins (defendant) from publishing the novelisation of the film’s screenplay.A Division Bench of the Court has now rejected RDB and Co's appeal against the single-judge order..Advocates Hemant Daswami and Saumya Bajpai appeared for RDB And Co.HarperCollins was represented by Advocates Swathi Sukumar, Essenese Obhan, Ashima Obhan, Ritik Raghuwanshi, Pratyush Rao, Ayesha Ghutha Kurtha, Seerat Bhutani and Naveen Nagarjuna..[Read Order]