[Ayyappanum Koshiyum remake rights] Delhi High Court vacates stay on Hindi dub of Telugu remake Bheemla Nayak

The Delhi High Court this week vacated its interim order staying the release of the Hindi dub version of Telugu action-drama Bheemla Nayak starring Pawan Kalyan [JA Entertainment Pvt Ltd v. MS Sithara Entertainment & Ors]..While reiterating what was held by the Madras High Court in Thiagarajan Kumararaja v. Capital Film Works (India) Pvt. Ltd. and Another, Justice Jyoti Singh held,"Owner of copyright in a cinematographic work, inter alia, has a right to both subtitle and dub its work, though subject to any restrictive condition being put by the parties concerned.".The Court noted that Bheemla Nayak was a remake of the Malayalam film Ayyappanum Koshiyum, which was released in February 2020, and was a huge success commercially.The facts of the case are that in 2020, the producers of the Malayalam film had entered into an assignment agreement with the plaintiff, which granted the latter the sole right to make a new film in Hindi, based on Ayyappanum Koshiyum. The plaintiff was also granted the right to dub the new Hindi film in other languages.Around the same time, the producers of Ayyappanum Koshiyum entered into an assignment agreement with the defendant allowing the latter to make a new film in Telugu. The defendant sought to amend the agreement to acquire rights of dubbing beyond the Telugu language, but the producers refused to execute the same.The film was then remade in Telugu as Bheemla Nayak..However, the plaintiff came across trailer of of the Bheemla Nayak dubbed in Hindi. It, therefore, approached the High Court claiming that the act of remaking the Malayalam film in Telugu and, thereafter, dubbing the same in Hindi effectively amounts to remaking the Malayalam film in Hindi, and amounted to infringement of its copyright.It thus sought a permanent injunction to restrain the defendants from infringing its copyright, with respect to the remake and dubbing rights of the film in Hindi. It also sought a stay on the dubbing of Bheemla Nayak in Hindi, claiming that it had the rights for the Hindi remake of the original Malayalam film.On the other hand, the defendant argued that being the owner of the copyright in the newly made Telugu film gave it the right to exploit the film in all formats, including dubbing the same in any language..On a reading of Section 51 of the Copyright Act, which enlists the circumstances under which copyright is said to be infringed, the Court held,"Simply put under Section 51 of the Act, a grievance with respect to infringement of a copyright can arise only if the exclusive right to do an act conferred upon the copyright owner is infringed. Therefore, if Defendant No. 1 had remade the Malayalam film in Hindi language or had dubbed the same in Hindi language, Plaintiff may have had a cause of action for infringement."Justice Singh also held the prima facie view that dubbing of the remade Telugu film into Hindi does not amount to infringement of the exclusive right of the plaintiff to remake the Malayalam film in Hindi and to dub the new film as well as the Malayalam film in all languages."Even assuming for the sake of argument that Defendant No. 1 is violating the terms of the Deed of Assignment executed with Defendant No. 3, in terms of dubbing the remade Telugu film in Hindi, it may at the highest give rise to a cause of action in favour of Defendant No. 3, who has not chosen to sue Defendant No. 1, but cannot be the basis of an infringement action in favour of the Plaintiff," the judgment stated..The Court thus vacated the stay on the release of the Hindi dub of Bheemla Nayak. It was made clear that its findings were prima facie in nature and were not to affect the final outcome of the suit before the trial court..Senior Advocate Dayan Krishnan along with Advocates Achuthan Sreekumar, Ameet Naik, Madhu Gadodia, Megha Chandra, Rohil Bansal and Sujoy Mukherjee appeared for the plaintiff.Senior Advocate, Amit Sibal along with Advocates Aurup Das Gupta, Rohan Thawani, Vinay P Tripathi, Saksham Dhingra and Mayank Bhargava appeared for the makers of Bheemla Nayak.Senior Advocate Jayant Mehta and Advocates Dhiraj Mhetre, Sanampreet Singh, PDV Sikar and Sonali Mehta represented the assignees of the rights to the Hindu dub of Bheemla Nayak.Advocate Achyuth Ajithkumar represented the producers of Ayyappanum Koshiyum..[Read order]