A Bengaluru court has directed microblogging site Twitter to temporarily block the handles of the Indian National Congress (INC) and its mass movement, Bharat Jodo Yatra, following a copyright infringement complaint. The ban will be in place until the next date of hearing.

The infringement suit was initiated by MRT Music, a Bengaluru-based music label, that has alleged that Congress handles illegally used the sound records of the blockbuster Kannada film KGF-Chapter 2 in one of the videos of the Bharat Jodo Yatra campaign.

The urban district commercial court said if the Congress is not stopped from the unauthorised use of songs from the movie, it would lead to “irreparable injury” to the plaintiff and also “encourage piracy”.

The music is said to have been used during Congress’ Bharat Jodo mass campaign, as part of which Rahul Gandhi is orchestrating the movement by mobilising the party cadre and general public into walking by foot from Kanyakumari to Jammu and Kashmir

What is the case?

An FIR was registered at the Yeshwanthpur police station on November 4 against three senior Congress leaders — Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh and Supriya Shrinate — for the alleged unauthorised use of KGF-2 music during the Bharat Jodo Yatra campaign.

M Naveen Kumar, who manages MRT Music, the label that owns the copyright to KGF-2 songs, lodged the complaint under the provisions of Copyright Act, the Information Technology Act and the Indian Penal Code.

According to the complainant, senior party leader Jairam Ramesh posted two videos of the yatra on his official Twitter handle that used the songs of KGF-2 film without the label’s permission.

He said the party “fraudulently, blatantly and slavishly with an intention of making wrongful gains” used the music owned by the company, Indian Express reported. According to another report by India Today, MRT Music said it invested a lot of money to acquire the rights of the songs in KGF 2 in Hindi.

What did the court say?

The court has directed Twitter to remove three tweets posted by Congress handles from its platform and temporarily block the Twitter handles of Congress and Bharat Jodo Yatra.

The court examined the CD produced by MRT Music showing the original version of the copyrighted work and compared it with the synchronised version.

“These prima facie materials available before this court at this stage establishes that if same is encouraged plaintiff who is in the business of acquiring cinematography films, songs, music albums etc., will be put to irreparable injury and further same leads to encouraging the piracy at large,” the court said.

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It also directed the defendants not to use the copyrighted work of the plaintiff until the next hearing date.

The court has appointed SN Venkateshmurthy, district system administrator of computer section, commercial court, Bengaluru, as the local commissioner to conduct an electronic audit of the defendants’ Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube platforms and seize or preserve the infringing material.

Congress reacts

Congress has claimed it was not made aware of the court proceedings and that it did not receive any copy of the order.

In a Twitter post, the party said it read about the court order on social media.“We are pursuing all the legal remedies at our disposal," Congress said.

We have read on social media about an adverse order from a Bengaluru court against INC & BJY SM handles.

We were neither made aware of nor present at court proceedings. No copy of the order has been received.We are pursuing all the legal remedies at our disposal.— Congress (@INCIndia) November 7, 2022

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