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In Warner Brothers Pictures v. Columbia Broadcasting Systems the court held that the
character can be copyrighted if it is well delineated as to constitute the story being told. 5
(interpretation of story being told).
INFRINGMENT OF COPYRIGHT
The Copyright Act, 1957, extends copyright protection to the work by conferring certain
exclusive rights on its author. The rational of providing copyright protection to the owner of
the work is to enable him to reap the fruits of his labour and investment to the exclusion of
others. Infringement of a Copyright is a trespass in a private domain owned and occupied by
the owner of the Copyright, and therefore, protected by law6.
Under Section 51 of the Copyright Act, 1957 a work is deemed to be infringed when any
person without the permission of the owner of the copyrighta) Does anything, the exclusive right to do is conferred to the owner of the copyright.
b) Distributes or sells the infringing copies of the work for the purpose of trade or to
such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright.
If any person without the consent of the owner of the copyright copies his work, he will be
infringing the copyright under Section 51 read with Section 14(a) and Section 14(b) of the
Act. (Check 14 a and B)
In Shyam Lal Paharia and Another v. Gaya Prasad Gupta Rasal 7the court observed1) The question whether an impugned work is colourable imitation of another persons
work is always a question of fact and has to be determined from the circumstance in
each case.
2) The determining factor in finding whether another persons copyright has been
infringed is to see whether the impugned work is a slavish imitation and copy of
another persons work or it bears the impress of authors own labours and exertions.
The animus furandi, that is, an intention to take from another for purpose of saving labour,
is one of the important ingredients to be found against a defendant before he can, in a suit
under the Copyright Act, be damnified8.
CAUSAL CONNECTION
In order to prove infringement, the plaintiff must prove that there is causal connection
between the work of the plaintiff and the defendant. If there are similarities in the work and
that the plaintiffs work was earlier, then the presumption will be that the defendant has
copied from the plaintiffs work unless it is rebutted. The similarities of incidents and
situation undoubtedly afford prima facie evidence of copy and in the absence of any
explanation by the defendant regarding the sources, the plaintiffs must succeed 17.
Anand wala case
16 Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetable Pvt. LTd. V. Mallikarjuna Dairy Products Pvt.
Ltd 2012 (49) PTC 346 (Del.) at p. 251.
17 Harnam Pictures N.V v. Osborn, (1967) 1 WLR 723: (1967) 2 All ER 324