Sunburn Goa Festival in Goa: Bombay HC restrains organisers from playing Bollywood songs owned by Novex Communications without licence

A single-judge bench of Justice Manish Pitale on December 21 passed an order in an interim application filed by Novex Communications against Percept and Percept Live Pvt Limited in its copyright infringement suit. Senior advocate Sharan Jagtiani representing Novex submitted that it has exclusive rights in respect of the repertoire of large numbers of film and non-film songs in Hindi and other regional languages and it has signed assignment deeds with seven music labels.

The said deeds include “on-ground performance rights” such as live events in commercial establishments, including clubs, hotels, restaurants etc. Novex can issue licences to third parties to play the songs for an event or certain periods in exchange for a fee.

The plaintiff claimed that it had issued notice to the defendants on November 24 expressing apprehension that the Sunburn organisers were likely to violate the plaintiff’s rights in the upcoming event in Goa and asked them to cease such violation and apply for appropriate licenses for playing such sound recordings instead. No response to the notice from the defendants prompted Novex to file an interim plea in HC seeking urgent relief.

Justice Pitale noted that there was sufficient material on record to show exclusive rights held by the plaintiff concerning sound recordings of seven music labels. The judge also found the past conduct of the defendants in considering urgent relief.

It noted that the defendant had on one occasion conceded exclusive rights held by the plaintiff and on another occasion had given an undertaking to HC that it would not play sound recordings of Novex for all its events throughout India. The court held “a strong prima facie case was made out by the Plaintiff in its favour.”

“…There is sufficient material to show that the Defendants may violate the exclusive rights held by the Plaintiff in the aforementioned sound recordings, particularly in the backdrop of the past conduct of the Defendants and that therefore, if ad-interim relief, as prayed, is not granted, the Plaintiff is likely to suffer grave and irreparable loss,” Justice Pitale held.

Pending the hearing and final disposal of the suit, the bench issued a temporary injunction against the defendants. It clarified that the said ad-interim relief will not come in the way of defendants applying to Novex for a grant of license in the event they wish to play the sound recordings of which the plaintiff holds exclusive rights.

The bench posted the further hearing to February 10, 2023, and noted that the interim relief will continue to operate till then.

In another order, Justice Pitale restrained the hotels, restaurants, resorts, lounges, pubs, clubs and bars from using copyright-protected sound recordings of Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL), without a license. The commercial establishments can obtain two types of licenses from PPL, which include one that can be used throughout the year and another for specific events or a period like New Year, Christmas, Holi or corporate events among others.

PPL, founded in 1941, claims itself as a performance rights organisation that holds performance licenses to over 25 lakh songs assigned to it by over 300 music labels in Hindi, English in other languages.