A court in Bengaluru on Monday ordered social media platform Twitter to temporarily block the main account of the Congress party and its mass mobilisation campaign Bharat Jodo Yatra after a music label filed a copyright infringement case, Bar and Bench reported.
Additional City Civil Judge Lathakumari M passed the order on a suit filed by MRT Music claiming that both the accounts illegally used sound records of the Kannada film KGF-Chapter 2.
The judge asked Twitter to take down three links from the social media platform and block the two handles – @INCIndia and @BharatJodo – till the next date of the hearing on November 21, Live Law reported.
“Plaintiff has specifically produced CD showing the side by side file i.e., original version of his copyrighted work with that of the illegally synchronised version,” the court said. “These prima facie materials available before this court at this stage establishes that if same is encouraged plaintiff who is in the business of acquiring cinematography films, songs, music albums etc., will be put to irreparable injury and further same leads to encouraging the piracy at large.”
Based on a complaint by M Naveen Kumar, who manages MRT Music, a first information report was filed in the Yashwanthpur police station on November 4 against Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh and Supriya Shrinate under the provisions of Copyright Act, the Information Technology Act and the Indian Penal Code, PTI reported.
The complainant 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.
“On perusal of the videos it is clear that all the accused have fraudulently, blatantly and slavishly with an intention of making wrongful gains have unauthorisedly and illegally used the sound recording,” the complaint said.
On Monday, the judge restrained the Congress leaders from illegally using the copyrighted work till the next date of the hearing.
The civil court agreed to a request from the counsel representing MRT Music, seeking the appointment of a commissioner to inspect and conduct an electronic audit of the Congress’ and the Bharat Jodo Yatra’s Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook accounts.
“This court is convinced that object of granting an injunction would be defeated by delay if commissioner is not appointed to make local inspection,” the order stated. “Accordingly, SN Venkateshmurthy, district system administrator of computer section, commercial court, Bengaluru is appointed as local commissioner to visit the defendants 1 to 3 website, conduct electronic audit and preserve the infringing materials available in the above social media and prepare inventory of the same and store the same in this court’s system and separate CD.”
After the directive, Ramesh said the Congress was pursuing all legal remedies at its disposal. He added that the party was not present during the proceedings and has not received the court order.
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