Sameer Wadekar & Anr. v. Netflix Entertainment Services Pvt. Ltd - Synopsis
Ahir Mitra 26 Jun 2021

Sameer Wadekar & Anr v. Netflix Entertainment Services Pvt. Ltd.

2020 SCC OnLine Bom 659

In a video conference hearing, the Bombay High Court refused to give interim relief in a copyright infringement case involving the Netflix series "Betaal." The Plaintiff, a Marathi screenwriter, claimed that between 2013-14, he wrote a script called "VETAAL" and filed it as a literary work in 2015. Following that, he shared the script with a few producers, including Wilson Louis, with the hope of producing a motion picture out of it.

He recently saw a 146-second teaser for Defendant No 1's ("Netflix") online series "BETAAL," in which he saw 13 similarities to VETAAL. As a result, the Plaintiff claimed that Netflix infringed his copyrights in the script. It was also claimed by the Plaintiff that it was an instance of plagiarism.

On three grounds, the court dismissed the interim application to prevent BETAAL's release. The first and most important question the court considered, whether any of the defendants had access to the Plaintiff's work in order to duplicate or infringe it. The Plaintiff had no direct relationship with any of the Defendants and had not given them the script. The sole claim was that he gave the script to a man named Wilson Louis, who claimed to have ties to Netflix. However, it appears that the evidence does not support such a claim. In the lack of any further evidence, the court found that the Plaintiff's accusing Wilson Louis as he has some contacts with Netflix, which is not sufficient to warrant an injunction. Wilson Louis does not appear to be a party to the proceedings, and no claim for breach of confidentially appears to exist.

The second point was that on the 16th and 17th of July 2019, the Defendants published various print and online articles promoting BETAAL, in which they revealed its plot. The Plaintiff, on the other hand, did not approach the Court until May 2020, a few days before BETAAL's publication. Despite the plaintiff's argument that he was unaware of the publications, the court appears to have decided that he should have been because they were in the public domain. As a result, the court determined that the claim was affected by delays and locks.

The court determined that the name Betaal comes from the Hindu legendary phrase Vetalam, which was the third and most fascinating and distinctive element. In this context, the court alluded to King Vikramaditya and Vetaal/ Betaal, two well-known Hindu legendary characters. The court determined that such stories are well known, and so no injunction could be issued.

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