Breaking: Bengaluru Court Orders Twitter To Block Handles Of Congress Party & Bharat Jodo For Alleged Unauthorised Use Of KGF-2's Music
A civil court in Bengaluru on Monday directed Twitter to temporarily block the handles of Indian National Congress and Bharat Jodo after MRT Music in a suit accused the party of infringing its copyright by "illegal" use of KGF chapter-2's music in the videos uploaded by it on the microblogging platform.Additional City Civil Judge Lathakumari M passed the ex-parte order on the suit filed by...
A civil court in Bengaluru on Monday directed Twitter to temporarily block the handles of Indian National Congress and Bharat Jodo after MRT Music in a suit accused the party of infringing its copyright by "illegal" use of KGF chapter-2's music in the videos uploaded by it on the microblogging platform.
Additional City Civil Judge Lathakumari M passed the ex-parte order on the suit filed by the plaintiff wherein the respondents are Indian National Congress, Supriya Shrinate, Rahul Gandhi, Twitter Inc and Ashok Kumar.
The court directed Twitter to remove and take down three tweets which were posted from Congress party's main handle @INCIndia. It further ordered the micro-blogging site "to block" the social media handles @INCIndia and @BharatJodo till next date of hearing.
"I have carefully considered all documents produced along with the plaint also the CD produced by plaintiff by playing the same in court system. Plaintiff has specifically produced a CD showing the side by side file i.e., original version of his copyrighted work with that of the illegally synchronized version. 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."
The court further restrained the defendants "from unauthorizedly and illegally using the copyrighted work owned by the plaintiff and illegally synchronizing, from distributing pirated copies of the same and also restrained from illegal uploading, storing, posting, communicating to the public, digitally transmitting the work held by the plaintiff" till next date."
The court also said it was convinced that the object of granting an injunction would be defeated by delay if commissioner is not appointed to make local inspection."
Accordingly it appointed S.N. Venkateshmurthy, District System Administrator of Computer Section, Commercial Court, Bengaluru is appointed as Local Commissioner to visit the defendants 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."
The court then posted the matter for hearing on November 21.
MRT Music has sought a decree of permanent injunction against the Congress and its party leaders for alleged unauthorised use of its copyrighted work.
After the news broke, Congress in a tweet said, "We have read on social media about an adverse order from a Bengaluru court against INC & BJY SM handles. 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."
Case Title: M/s MRT Music v. The Indian National Congress & others
Appearance: Advocate Pranav Kumar Mysore for plaintiff.