Mad Man Film Ventures Pvt. Ltd. v. Reliance Entertainment Studios Pvt. Ltd. & Ors.
In the High Court of Bombay
I.A. (L) 4439/2022 in Comm. IPR (L) 4433/2022
Before Justice R. I. Chagla
Decided on March 16, 2022

Relevancy of the case: Requirement of consent from the copyright owner before launching the movie on OTT platforms

Statutes and Provisions Involved

• The Copyright Act, 1957 (Section 13, 18)

Relevant Facts of the Case

• In 2021, the plaintiff filed an execution application against the respondents about interpreting the Consent Terms. The Bombay High Court passed a consent award following an arbitral proceeding regarding the Consent Terms.
• As per the Consent Terms, the exploitation rights of the film shall vest exclusively and absolutely in the plaintiff after the first 10 years post the release of the movie ’83’.
• In February 2022, the movie became available on OTT platforms without seeking prior consent from the plaintiff.

Prominent Arguments by the Advocates

• The plaintiff’s counsel argued that the plaintiff’s prior consent was necessary to exploit satellite or digital media rights by OTT platforms.
• The defendant’s counsel submitted that they have the right to exploit the film through satellite and/or digital media for the first ten years after the movie’s release.

Opinion of the Bench

• The plaintiff had acknowledged the rights of the third party, which included the defendants, in the arbitral proceedings, which were previously instituted because of some dispute in the execution of the consent award.
• The defendants can exercise ancillary exploitation rights for the first 10 years after the movie’s release.
• The Consent Terms are not binding on Star India and Netflix since they were not a party.

Final Decision

• The court rejected the plaintiff’s ad-interim injunction prayer.

Satvik Mishra, an undergraduate student at the Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab, prepared this case summary during his internship with The Cyber Blog India in May/June 2022.