KARNATAKA: The Karnataka High Court declined to quash a first information report registered against Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh and Supriya Shrinate in a copyright infringement case, reported PTI.
Last year, music label MRT Music had filed a copyright infringement suit as well as a criminal complaint against them after the Twitter account of the party used sound records of Kannada film KGF-Chapter 2 for its Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Based on the complaint, the case was registered under the provisions of Copyright Act, the Information Technology Act and the Indian Penal Code.
M Naveen Kumar, who manages the music label, had alleged that Ramesh on his Twitter account posted two videos of the Bharat Jodo Yatra in which popular songs from the movie were used without permission.
Earlier, Justice M Nagaprasanna dismissed a joint petition filed by the Congress leaders that had questioned the legality of registration of the criminal case in addition to the civil suit, reported The Hindu.
Senior Advocate Vikram Huilgol, appearing for the Congress leaders, argued that for an offence to be made out under the Copyright Act, the accused must knowingly infringe a copyright, reported Bar and Bench. He added that the Congress had not monetised the copyrighted content.
However, the High Court said that all these factors need to be investigated by the police.
“The petitioners appears to have tampered with the source code without the permission and played the audio which would undoubtedly amount to infringement of copyright of the complainant,” the High Court said. “The petitioners appeared to have taken the copyright of the complainant for granted.”
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