- Indian filmmaker,
Suneel Darshan , won the copyright infringement case filed against Google and its platform video platform, YouTube. - It took eight years for the case to come to a close.
- The court has awarded Darshan ₹50,000 in damages and ordered Google and YouTube to restrain from infringing on his work.
The Indian filmmaker behind Bollywood hits like Andaaz and Barsaat emerged triumphant against Google and its video-sharing platform, YouTube, after an eight-year-long courtroom battle over copyright infringement.
The District Court of Gurgaon ruled in his favour, ordering Google and YouTube from infringing on his works but doled out only ₹50,000 in damages ($700).
“It was a long battle, but the order made me felt vindicated. I would calculate and file for total damages soon,” Darshan told $4
YouTube’s only a service provider — not responsible for the actions of its users
Darshan, the proprietor of the film production company Shree Krishna International, accused the pair of circulating and sharing his work with the public without any prior permission or authorisation — making for infringement of copyright.
His lawyers argued that the defendants were profiting from the ‘unauthorised exploitation’ of Darshan’s work through ad revenue.
Google and YouTube argued — as always — that they were only service providers, and not responsible for what users do with the service, well within the parameters of the IT Act, 2000. This is why most people file cases against whoever uploaded the video rather than the platform itself.
The question of prior notification
The pair also argued that Darshan or his company-issued no prior communication that their content was infringing the Copyright Act. They claimed that it was the plaintiff’s responsibility to provide the specific URLs, which are in violation.
Normally, in cases of copyright infringement, victims are supposed to file a takedown request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Even though DMCA is a part of US copyright law, anyone around the world can file a DMCA takedown request with Google. The tech giant $4 respects more than 97% of the DMCA requests that it receives.
YouTube also makes a strong case that it doesn’t do anything to ‘induce’ infringement by rolling out multiple tools to stop infringement on its platform, like Content ID and Copyright Match Tool.
Yet, Darshan lawyers called YouTube an ‘unauthorised downloader’ infringing on sound recording, cinematograph films, and audio-visual songs without a license.
The court held that if the defendants were aware of the content, they could have easily located the URLs and removed them.
YouTube is not the only platform accused of profiting content without adequately compensating the artists. Taylor Swift’s $4 and, Beyonce and Jay Z’s development of $4 arose from the same problem.
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