A Bengaluru court on Monday directed Twitter to temporarily block the accounts of the Congress party and its Bharat Jado Yatra campaign for allegedly violating copyright laws. The order came on a petition filed by MRT Music alleging that the party had used music from the blockbuster Kannada film KGF Chapter-2 for the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' campaign without permission.
The dedicated commercial court for Bengaluru Urban District also ordered removing three tweets posted by the party.
"Plaintiff has specifically produced CD showing the side by side file i.e., original version of his copyrighted work with that of the illegally synchronised version. These prima facie materials available before this court at this stage establish that if same is encouraged, plaintiff who is in the business of acquiring cinematography films, songs, music albums... will be put to irreparable injury and further same leads to encouraging the piracy at large," the court said in its order.
The music company alleged that its copyright has been infringed upon and sought a permanent injunction against the party and its leaders from using its copyrighted music.
On Friday, the Yashwanthpur police had filed an FIR against Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh and 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.