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Showing contexts for: joint authorship in Salim Khan And Another vs Sumeet Prakash Mehra And Others on 2 September, 2013Matching Fragments
7. According to the Plaintiffs, they are the conceivers, writers, authors and owners of the story, screenplay (being a literary work) and dialogues (being a literary work) of the said film, which is evident from the credits of the said film, wherein the Plaintiffs' names appear as writers of the said story, screenplay and dialogues for the said film. The Plaintiffs are the authors and KPP NMSL 768 OF 2013 owners of the story, script, dialogues and screenplay of the film titled "Zanjeer", exhibited and released in 1973. This constitutes and embodies a literary work within the meaning of the Copyright Act, 1957 ("the Act"). It is submitted that the Plaintiffs wrote the script, screenplay and dialogues of the film jointly and the same is a work of joint authorship.
36. Mr. Khambata submitted that therefore according to Plaintiff No.1, now there was no story written at all much less a story co-authored by the Plaintiffs together. There was according to him the "idea of a story" by Plaintiff No. 1 alone and then a complete script by him together with Plaintiff No.2. The Plaintiffs thus also abandoned the case of them having a ready bound script consisting of screenplay and dialogues written by them. It is submitted that the Plaintiffs have in the plaint approached this Court on the basis that the alleged copyrighted material was a "work of joint authorship". The definition of this term in Section 2 (z) of the Act is as follows:
" 2 (z) "work of joint authorship" means a work produced by KPP NMSL 768 OF 2013 the collaboration of two or more authors in which the contribution of one author is not distinct from the contribution of the other author or authors."
It is submitted that hence it is essential that the collaboration between the Plaintiffs must be one where the contribution of Plaintiff No. 1 (one author) is not distinct from the contribution of Plaintiff No.2 (the other author).
However, if the Plaintiff No.1's case in rejoinder is considered, then the Plaintiffs do not claim joint authorship of the literary work to start with viz.