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Tag: injunction order

  • SPN obtains Delhi HC injunction order to protect copyright of India-England cricket series

    SPN obtains Delhi HC injunction order to protect copyright of India-England cricket series

    Mumbai: Sony Pictures Networks (SPN) has obtained a Dynamic John Doe injunction order from the Delhi high court to prevent copyright infringement for the India-England international cricket series in July. This will protect SPN against unauthorised and illegal IP disclosure on the internet and other social media platforms.

    As per the Dynamic John Doe order, certain multi-system operators (MSO), local cable operators (LCO) and websites/uniform resource locators (URLs) are prohibited from communicating and broadcasting to the public the cricketing series due to their indulgence in piracy and infringing SPN’s copyright in the broadcast and digital transmission rights for the cricketing series.

    The said order prohibits the websites/URLs in any manner, from hosting, streamlining, reproducing, distributing, making available to the public and/or communicating to the public or facilitating the same on their websites, through the internet in any manner whatsoever, any cinematograph work, content, programme or event in which SPN has copyright.

    The said order further prohibits MSOs and LCOs from in any manner hosting, streaming, reproducing, distributing, broadcasting, making available to the public and/or communicating to the public any unauthorised and unlicensed reproduction or broadcast on the local channels or through other means of various copyrighted content, including but not limited to the cricketing series through cable network.

    Further, in general, various internet service providers (ISPs) are directed to block access to the websites/URLs. If SPN discovers any other websites / MSOs/LCOs infringing its copyrights in respect of the cricketing series, it can approach the Delhi high court under this John Doe Order and seek requisite reliefs. In addition, a local commissioner has also been appointed to enforce the provisions of the said order against MSOs/LCOs indulging in piracy by unauthorizedly distributing or transmitting/communicating/redistributing the cricketing series without a valid license from SPN.

    SPN had acquired an exclusive license from the England and Wales Cricket Board Limited (ECB) to broadcast/communicate the India-England series to the public in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and the Maldives in 2021.

    However, the series had to be stopped midway, after four test matches, owing to rising Covid cases. The current John Doe Order protects SPN’s copyright for the remainder of the cricketing series, starting July 2022, which comprises one test match, three T20 matches and three one-day international matches.

  • Zeel-Invesco case: Bombay HC to continue hearing on 30 Nov

    Zeel-Invesco case: Bombay HC to continue hearing on 30 Nov

    Mumbai: At the Zeel-Invesco hearing held on Monday, the division bench of the Bombay high court decided to continue the hearing on 30 November. On 29 October, the court had granted a temporary injunction against the requisition notice by Invesco.

    Counsel appearing on behalf of Invesco stated that the court’s judgement to give injunction against requisition will have a far-reaching impact. He said “Court cannot injunct a meeting as it is the statutory right of shareholder with one-tenth share capital,” according to a Moneycontrol report.

    The Zeel-Invesco tussle began when the media company’s two top investors Invesco Developing Markets Fund and OFI Global China Fund LLC who combined own ~18 per cent stake in the company had sent a requisition notice to the company on 11 September to call for an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders.

    The investors had also sought the removal of long-standing directors and close associates of the Chandra family from the board. The two independent directors Ashok Kurien and Manish Chokhani have already submitted their resignations.  

    The investors moved to have six nominees appointed to the board of Zeel, which included Surendra Singh Sirohi, Naina Krishna Murthy, Rohan Dhamija, Aruna Sharma, Srinivasa Rao Addepali, and Gaurav Mehta as independent directors of the board for a term up to five consecutive years. The notice was received by Zeel on 12 September, and it informed the stock exchanges on 13 September, adding that the appointments are subject to approval by the ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB).

    Zeel refused to conduct the EGM citing “shareholders interest” and moved to Bombay high court on 2 October seeking to declare the requisition notice as ‘illegal and invalid.’

  • Delhi HC orders suspension of websites infringing Aaj Tak trademark

    Delhi HC orders suspension of websites infringing Aaj Tak trademark

    Mumbai: The Delhi high court has directed digital media platforms Google and Facebook to suspend the domain names and web platforms of a number of websites for infringing the “Aaj Tak” trademark, according to a report by Bar and Bench.

    The order was passed by the single judge bench held by Justice Suresh Kumar Sait in a suit filed by Living Media India Ltd, a parent company of Aaj Tak. The court also extended the previously granted interim injunction passed against the websites in question.

    The HC order has restrained four websites from using the “Aaj Tak” trademark and observed that “the extensive and awareness of the plaintiffs’ trademarks and device/composite mark is apparent if one were to take into account the figures concerning turnover and advertisement spend set out in the plaint”, according to the report.

    During a previous hearing, senior advocate Darpan Wadhwa, appearing on behalf of Aaj Tak, had sought leave from the court to file for relief seeking similar orders against other rogue websites that emerged. Consequently, the plaintiffs sought impleadment of several additional websites and prayed for suspension of their domain names.

    The single judge bench concluded that the proposed defendants were “necessary parties for just adjudication of this case and if they are not impleaded, prima facie it will amount to immense loss of goodwill and reputation on account of the unlawful activities of these proposed defendants.”