In a relief to the Congress, the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday set aside a Bengaluru court's order directing micro-blogging site Twitter to temporarily block the handles of the party and its 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' campaign in a case related to alleged copyright infringement. The high court's ruling came after the Congress submitted an undertaking that it would remove the music, which it allegedly used without permission, from all its social media handles.
The dedicated commercial court for Bengaluru Urban District had on Monday ordered the blocking of two Twitter handles of the party and removal of three tweets posted by it. The order came on a petition filed by MRT Music which alleged that political party had used its music from the blockbuster Kannada film KGF Chapter-2 for the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' campaign without permission.
Claiming that its copyright has been infringed upon, the music company had sought a permanent injunction against the party and its leaders from using its copyrighted music.
Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the counsel for the Congress party, told the high court on Tuesday that the KGF Chapter-2 song would be removed from all the social media handles of the party, and the screen shots would be provided to the MRT Music.
On Friday, the Yashwanthpur police had filed an FIR against Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh and Supriya Shrinate, based on a complaint lodged by M. Naveen Kumar, who manages the MRT music. The FIR was filed under the provisions of Copyright Act, the Information Technology Act and the Indian Penal Code.
The complainant alleged that Jairam Ramesh had on his official Twitter handle posted two videos of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, in which popular songs from the film were used without permission.
Kumar alleged that the said videos were made using the popular sound recordings owned and held by the complainant. “On perusal of the videos it is clear that all the accused have fraudulently, blatantly and slavishly with an intention of making wrongful gains have unauthorizedly and illegally used the sound recording owned and held by the Complainant,” he said.