Recently, Pocket FM Pvt. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as ‘Plaintiff’) have filed a suit for an ex- parte injunction against Mebigo Labs Private Limited (hereinafter referred to as ‘Defendant No. 1’), Kuku FM (hereinafter referred to as ‘Defendant No. 2’) and Kavita Verma (hereinafter referred to as ‘Defendant No. 3’) for infringement, distribution, publishing, offering for sale, communicating to the public and broadcasting of the novel ‘Main Teri Chandani’ (hereinafter referred to as ‘the said novel’) vide Pocket FM Pvt. Ltd. v. Mebigo Labs Pvt. Ltd. & Ors., CS (COMM) 216/2021.
Plaintiff is classified as Non-govt Company incorporated on 28th September, 2018. Plaintiff is an online audio platform that offers over 10,000+ hours of Audiobooks and Podcasts across 3 Indian languages viz Hindi, Tamil and Bengali. Defendant No. 1 is classified as Non-govt Company incorporated on 17th August, 2018. Defendant No. 2 is an online audio platform and Defendant No. 3 is author of the novel titled ‘Main Teri Chandani’.
The Plaintiff approached the author i.e. Defendant No. 3 with a proposal to release the Novel in the form of an audio book once significant portion of the Novel is published and thereafter Plaintiff and Defendant No. 3 entered into ‘in-principle’ understanding on 15th March 2019 that an audio book version will be published by the Plaintiff on an exclusive basis once the significant portion of the novel is released to the public in text form.
For sake of brevity, an agreement ‘in-principle’ is a stepping stone to a contract. Such agreements with regard to the principle are usually considered fair and equitable. Even if not all details are known, an agreement ‘in-principle’ may, for example, outline a schedule of royalties.
In March, 2020 Defendant No. 1 approached the author i.e. Defendant No. 3 for grant of audio rights in respect of the novel for a fixed term in exchange of royalty. On 23rd March, 2020 an alleged agreement was executed between Defendant No. 1 and Defendant No. 3 for the said audio rights of the said novel. The defendant No. 3 signed this document on 23rd March 2020 but Defendant No. 1 electronically signed the said document on 27th March 2020. Prior to that, on 25th March 2020 Defendant No. 3 addressed an e-mail to the Defendant No. 1 withdrawing her consent from the said alleged agreement stating that she was already in a contractual agreement for the audio rights with the Plaintiff and any agreement between them stands void.
On 11th May, 2020 another e-mail is sent to Defendant No. 1 from Defendant No. 3 stating that there is no agreement between them and if any part of the said novel is published on Kuku FM without her permission, then she will make complaint in Google Play Store. Further on 03rd June, 2020 Defendant No. 3 have sent another email to Defendant No. 1 stating that she have tried sending back the amount that have been wrongly transferred into her account for the Audio Rights. She emphasized that she do not have the Audio Rights for the said Novel as it had already transferred to someone else.
It is argued by the Plaintiff that there is no valid agreement existing between Defendant No. 1 and Defendant No. 3 which entails Defendant No. 1 to use the Copyright of the serial in question as is being wrongly done by Defendant No. 1. It is pleaded by Plaintiff that Defendant No. 1 is broadcasting audio book on its app ‘Kuku FM’ illegally and hence the Defendant No. 1 may be restrained from doing the needful.
The Defendant No. 1 has argued that agreement entered into by Plaintiff and Defendant No. 3 was digitally signed by parties on 26th March 2020 and stamp paper itself on which the agreement is executed was bought on 25th March 2020. Hence, the said agreement between Plaintiff and Defendant No. 3 was actually executed after 23rd March 2020 i.e. the date when Defendant No. 3 signed the agreement by digital signature with Defendant No.1.
At Present, Summon issued to Defendant No. 2 and Defendant No. 3 returnable for 11th May 2021. The matter is adjourned till then. Written statement is to be filed within 30 days. Replication, if any, be filed within 30 days thereafter. It would be attention-grabbing to see the Hon’ble High Court’s opinion and view in this matter.
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