A commercial court in Bengaluru on Monday, November 7, directed Twitter to temporarily block the official handle of the Indian National Congress (INC) as well as that of its nationwide campaign Bharat Jodo Yatra over copyright infringement. The suit, filed by MRT Music, alleged that the handles illegally used music from the film KGF: Chapter 2. The court ordered Twitter to take down three links which contained videos from the Bharat Jodo Yatra, during which music from the film was used. The court also ordered that the three links be taken down for the same reason. MRT Music owns the KGF 2 music label.
Ruling in favour of the plaintiff, the court observed that if the illegal use of music was encouraged, the “plaintiff [MRT Music] would suffer an irreparable injury and the same would also lead to encouraging piracy at large,” according to Bar and Bench. The court stated that MRT Music has produced a CD showing the original version of the song along with the “illegally synchronised version.” According to Bar and Bench, the court added, “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 the same leads to encouraging the piracy at large.”
The court ordered an ex-parte injunction (a temporary injunction) which restrained the Congress from unauthorised use of copyrighted work owned by MRT Music until the next date of hearing. The counsel for MRT Music argued that it was necessary to appoint a Commissioner to conduct an “electronic audit” to ensure that the INC and Bharat Jodo Yatra’s social media accounts are not illegally using their music, to which the court agreed.
The court then appointed SN Venkateshmurthy, District System Administrator of Computer Section, Commercial Court, as the commissioner to visit the websites and social media platforms of INC and Bharat Jodo Yatra and conduct an electronic audit and prepare an inventory of the materials that are infringing on MRT Music’s copyrights. Further, the commissioner was directed to store it in the court’s system and a separate CD.
Responding to the order, INC took to Twitter and said that they had read the “adverse order” from a Bengaluru court and were not made aware of the court proceedings, nor were they present at court. The tweet read, “We were neither made aware of nor present at court proceedings. No copy of the order has been received.We are pursuing all the legal remedies at our disposal.”