Delhi High Court Orders Website To Pay Rs. 5 Lakh Costs To Louis Vuitton For Unauthorised Use Of Copyrighted Photos

The Delhi High Court has recently ordered Rs. 5 lakhs as costs in favour of famous French luxury brand Louis Vuitton in its suit against a website for use of its photographs without authorization.

Justice Mini Pushkarna directed the website, www.haute24.com and its owner to pay the costs to Louis Vuitton, which is situated in France, directly.

The court also injuncted the website from using the photographs, images or any promotional material, of which, the copyright vests with the luxury brand.

It said that the website in question shall not deal in the new products of Louis Vuitton, except, with the latter's written agreement or permission.

“The defendants shall continue their business of pre-owned goods of the plaintiff. However, the defendants shall conspicuously display on their website that the goods sold by them, are certified pre-owned goods of the plaintiff,” it added.

The court decreed the suit in favour of Louis Vuitton. The luxury brand had alleged that the website and its owner copied its photographs and infringed the copyright by using them without any authorization or commercial relationship.

In 2022, a coordinate bench had ordered blocking of the website, observing that a prima facie case of copyright infringement was made out.

In an interim order, the court had restrained copying or publishing of the infringing photographs on the website.

The unlicensed use of the plaintiff's photographs amounts to infringement of the copyright of the plaintiff in the said photographs, the plaint had alleged.

Louis Vuitton had told court that the photographs used for advertisement on its website qualified as "artistic works" within the meaning of section 2(c) of the Copyrights Act, 1957.

It was the luxury brand's case that it had the copyright of the photographs since they were taken at its instance by persons commissioned to do so and were used to advertise its products.

Title: LOUIS VUITTON MALLETIER v. WWW.HAUTE24.COM & ORS.

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Del) 938

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