A clarification on the Fox-‘Knockout’ copyright dispute

In this post, we would like to clarify one of our earlier posts that we had published on Monday regarding the Fox-‘Knockout’ copyright dispute. In the earlier post we had reported, on the basis of a NDTV/Mid-Day report that Fox had won a copyright infringement claim against the Indian producers of the movie ‘Knockout’ for allegedly infringing Fox’s copyright in the script for the movie ‘Phone-Booth’. The report had also mentioned that Fox was awarded Rs. 1.25 crore in damages. 

Subsequent to our post, we received some comments informing us that the issue was actually settled amicably between both parties. 

Thanks to some outside help, we managed to get our hands on the orders passed in the lawsuit and it appears that the initial news report in the Mid-Day was a piece of misinformation. 

From the information that we have gleaned from these orders, Fox had sued the producers of ‘Knock-Out’ in October, 2010 before the Bombay High Court just days before the movie was released. At the time the Single Judge had apparently granted Fox an interim injunction. This interim injunction was vacated by the Division Bench of the Bombay High Court on the undertaking that the Indian producers would deposit a sum of Rs. 1.5 crore with the Bombay High Court pending disposal of the suit. The next order is dated February 22, 2013 which records that Fox had moved to have the suit decreed in its favour, including the Rs. 1.5 crore. The Court issued noticed to the Defendants. 

On the next day, March 5, 2013 the order of the Bombay High Court records that the suit was being disposed in terms of the ‘Minutes of the Order’ submitted to the Court by both parties. From what I have been told by advocates in the Bombay High Court, this usually means that the matter has been settled amicably by both parties and the ‘Minutes of the Order’ would contain the terms of the settlement. While the ‘minutes’ are not available, it is quite clear that there has been no finding of copyright infringement by the Bombay High Court and the Rs. 1.25 crore have not been awarded as damages but as a part of the settlement. 

I don’t know why Mid-Day is putting a spin on this story by portraying the amicable settlement as a judgment of the court. 

On the merits of the case, I think it was a bad settlement. American movie studios have been trying to enforce such claims for the last decade and they almost never win because there is no copyright over the basic idea and most Hindi movies have a radically different portrayal of the same idea, which means that they do not infringe the copyright in the original script. We had earlier blogged about an earlier lawsuit where the Delhi High Court rejected a similar claim by Fox against Zee, available over here.