Delhi High Court directs Goldmines Telefilms not to upload songs from 14 Bollywood movies after T-Series files copyright suit

The Delhi High Court recently directed production house Goldmines Telefilms not to upload songs on YouTube from the 14 Bollywood movies over which T-Series has claimed copyright [Super Cassettes Industries Private Limited v. Goldmines Telefilms Private Limited]. .While T-Series is one of the world's largest music producing companies with 247 million subscribers on YouTube, Goldmines is also a big name in the production and dubbing business and has 87.7 million subscribers.Justice Prathiba M Singh passed the order on August 1 while hearing T-Series’ suit to restrain Goldmines from uploading the songs from movies like Vaastav, Diljale and Guru.“Considering the nature of the disputes raised, in the meantime, the Defendant shall not upload any further additional audio or audio-visual works from the suit films, apart from those which have already been uploaded on YouTube, till the next date of hearing. The current status quo shall be maintained till the injunction application is decided by the Court,” Justice Singh ordered..It was T-Series’ case that it owns prior assignment deeds in respect of the songs in question. It argued that Goldmines does not have rights to authorise the uploading of these songs on YouTube. While the platform has taken down some of the videos, many songs continue to remain on Goldmines’ channel, T-Series claimed.Meanwhile, Goldmines argued that it has also obtained assignment of rights in these cinematograph films from the movie’s producers or parties linked to them and, therefore, was entitled to exploit the songs as well.T-Series countered by saying that its assignments of audio-visual works are prior in time. Therefore, the producers would not have the right to assign to Goldmines the rights that have already been assigned to T-Series..After examining the case, Justice Singh noted that the Court will have to consider whether T-Series holds exclusive rights in the songs, and if so, to what extent.The Bench added that it will also consider whether Goldmines has the right to exploit the audio-visual songs which are a part of cinematograph films, independently, on YouTube and other platforms. “Clearly, these are issues that would require the Court to analyse each of the assignment deeds qua each of the suit films for both sides, and then pass appropriate order,” the order stated.The Court issued notice on the interim injunction application and asked Goldmines to file its assignment deeds and reply..Senior Advocate Amit Sibal along with Advocates Geetanjali Visvanathan, Harsh Kaushik, Abhilasha Nautiyal, Mukul Kochhar, Shivansh Tiwari, Rishabh Sharma, Darpan Sachdev and Saksham appeared for T-Series.Goldmines was represented through Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi and Advocates Aurup Dasgupta, Rohan Thawani and Aakriti Vikas..[Read Order]