NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has observed that no copyright is claimed in the religious scriptures while any adaptations including providing an explanation, summary, meaning, interpretation or creating any audio-visual works like Ramayana television series or B.R. Chopra’s Mahabharata and dramatic works would be entitled to copyright protection - being original works of the Authors themselves.
With the observation, the high court also restrained several entities from reproducing and disseminating content belonging to Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, established by ISKCON founder Srila Prabhupada.
Dealing the Trust's lawsuit in the matter, Justice Prathiba M Singh said, copyright would vest in original parts of works which preach, teach or explain the scripture and the piracy of such copyrighted works of the plaintiff cannot be permitted.
It was noted that the deception is not merely by making the books available, but by actually using the Plaintiff’s name as the source of the book.
"Defendant Nos.1 to 14 shall stand restrained in any manner from printing, reproducing, communicating, disseminating any part of the Plaintiff’s works to the public either in print form or in audio-visual form or in electronic form including through websites, mobile applications, weblinks, Instagram posts or any other posts on the social media as would result in the infringement of Plaintiff’s copyright," the court ordered.
"..there can be no objection in the actual reproduction of the text of Shrimad Bhagavad Gita or similarly other spiritual books. However, the manner in which the same is interpreted by different gurus and spiritual teachers being varied in nature, copyright would vest in respect of the original parts of the literary works which preach, teach or explain the scripture," the single-bench judge noted.
The court further directed Google LLC and Meta Platforms Inc. to take down the infringing works from their platforms while ordering the suspension and blocking of the offending links by the authorities.
Appearing for the plaintiff, Adv Saikrishna Rajagopala, submitted that the Plaintiff - Trust is engaged in a large number of charitable activities in India and one of the main sources of income for the Trust is the royalties which are earned from the aforementioned copyrighted works.
The Plaintiff-Trust has during the lifetime of the Author and after the Mahasamadhi of the Author, spread the said writings and teachings in various forms including printed books, audiobooks and electronic versions, it was stated.
