The Delhi High Court held on Tuesday that the first owner of copyright in the 1966 Bengali film ‘Nayak’ is legendary filmmaker late Satyajit Ray, who also wrote the screenplay for the movie.
As a result, Justice C Hari Shankar ruled that Ray had the right to novelize the screenplay and that that right could be assigned to him and, after his death, to his son and others to whom the right devolved.
Therefore, the Court denied a plea by the film’s producers, RDB and Co. (plaintiff), seeking injunction against publishing house HarperCollins (defendant) from publishing the novelisation of the film’s screenplay.
“The assignment of the right to novelize the screenplay of the film ‘Nayak’ by Sandip Ray and the SPSRA in favour of the defendant is, therefore, wholly in order and in accordance with the provisions of the [Copyright] Act,” the Court held.
RDB and Co approached before the High Court, claiming that Ray was commissioned by RD Bansal (Karta of RDB & Co) to write and direct the film Nayak. Bhaskar Chattopadhyay novelized the film’s screenplay somewhere around 2018, and the novel was published by HarperCollins on May 5, 2018.
The plaintiff claimed that Bhaskar Chattopadhyay’s novelization of the screenplay and the defendant’s publication of the novel constituted infringement of their copyright under Section 51 of the Copyright Act.
After hearing the case, Justice Hari Shankar held that the conclusion of Section 17 of the Copyright Act is that Ray, as the author of Nayak’s screenplay, was the initial owner of the copyright in the film.
As a result, the Court rejected the producer’s claim that he owns the copyright on the screenplay for the film Nayak.
“In light of the foregoing discussion, the plaintiff has no legal right to injunct the defendant from novelizing the screenplay of the film ‘Nayak,'” Justice Hari Shankar concluded.
