NO COPYRIGHT IN AN IDEA: BOMBAY HIGH COURT

The Bombay High Court bench of Justice Gautam Patel refused to restrain the release of Zombivli, a film produced by Saregama India, in a copyright infringement suit filed by Tarun Wadhwa, an amateur filmmaker.

Tarun claimed that in 2018 he began working on a comedy about zombies. In the same year, he registered a synopsis with the ScreenWriters' Association (SWA) and shared it with Saregama through its division, Yoodle Films. Yoodly films asked Wardha to submit a complete screenplay and Wadhwa did. This was again repeated before Saregama said that it had no interest any further. In July 2020, Saregama began the production of its film Zombivli, which the filmmaker claimed came from the idea proposed by him. He further argued that there was prima facie evidence of usage by Saregama of his original work.

He made 2 claims: 1. That Saregama illicitly used Wardha's material to make a Marathi film (breach of confidentiality) and 

2. It infringed his copyright in possibly three published works (copyright infringement). 

After describing the plot of the movie/movies, Justice Patel made the following observations: 

The judgment stated, "There is no copyright in the idea and pleadings must be precise and the facts must be clear". 

Justice Patel found that the controversy was not over the question of originality but the dichotomy between an idea and its expression in copyright law. The Court explained the distinction between copyright infringement and breach of confidence, "Copyright is a right in rem and confidentiality is entirely in personam. Copyright has a statutorily defined term. There is no copyright or infringement except as provided or prescribed by the statute. Confidentiality is one in a contract. The difference between the two, say, is a manuscript submitted for publication. An obligation to use the manuscript may be enforced under the confidence law, and may extend to a plot or a developed idea that may not otherwise be protected by copyright..."

Justice Patel stated in order to bring a cause of action in breach of confidence, there must be originality and completeness. However, the plaintiff failed to show all the required elements of confidentiality other than which were copyrighted, failing to make out a case.

The Court refused to grant an injunction on the release of the film. The order has since been appealed against.

Author: Papiha Ghoshal