The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday refused to quash a criminal case registered against Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh and Supriya Shrinate in a copyright infringement case.
Justice M Nagaprasanna stated that the petitioners seem to have taken the copyright of the complainant for granted.
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“The petitioners appear to have tampered with the source code without permission which would undoubtedly amount to infringement of the copyright of the complainant,” the judge said during the court hearing.
A complaint was filed by MRT Music against the Congress leaders for the alleged unauthorised use of music from the film ‘KGF: Chapter 2’ during the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
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On June 23, senior advocate Vikram Huilgol, representing the Congress leaders, argued that the accused has not monetised the copyrighted content in any way.
“For an offence to be made out under Section 63 of the Copyright Act, the accused must knowingly infringe a copyright,” he added.
On the other hand, senior advocate S Sriranga, appearing for MRT Music, contended that even if no monetary benefits were gained, the accused still gained popularity through the exercise.
In the complaint, MRT Music alleged that the video for the Bharat Jodo Yatra was created to gain popularity through mass circulations on social media platforms, and it used sound recordings owned by the complainant.
Last year, the High Court directed the Congress party to remove the offending content from its social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.