NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has ruled that Universal Music will have to pay royalty to Sholay Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd for selling Sholay’s ringtones, dialogues to Vodafone for marketing its products, as per terms of Deed of Assignment dated 7 August 1978 between Polydor Music and Sippy Films, reports Lawetalnews.com
Vodafone has also been directed to pay royalty for use of the sound-recording through digital or mobile media on the network of Vodafone Essar till date from the time the company had started distributing the sound recordings. These arrears are to be paid to the plaintiffs within four weeks, the court held.
Earlier Sholay Media had obtained an injunction from the Delhi High Court on 1 March 2011 restraining Vodafone from offering any songs and dialogues of the movie as caller tunes or ringtones or ringback tones to their customers or end users on the ground that they owned the rights to music of Sholay and they had only assigned copyright with respect to making of records of the music to Polydor music through an agreement in 1978.
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This claim was contested by defendants Universal Music, who took over Polydor who claimed that they had all the rights with respect to the music of Sholay since they were handed over the ‘plates’ of the music by Sholay media under the agreement.
Initially, the suit was filed against Vodafone Essar, but Universal Music and Phonographic Performance Ltd. (PPL) impleaded themselves as parties to the case on the ground that the rights to the sound recordings were with Universal, who had licensed it out to PPL, who in turn licensed it to Vodafone. Vodafone was paying license fees to PPL for using the sound recordings in digital and mobile media.
On the main dispute between the parties as to whether an absolute right to use the sound track, including songs and music by way of ringtones, truetones, callback, ringback or caller tunes etc were assigned to Polydor of India or the right to use sound track on digital and mobile platform continue to vest in the plaintiff company the court felt that the same would depend on the interpretation of the terms of the assignment deed.
Reasoning that the assignment deed was capable of being given two different and opposite interpretations, the court refrained from going into the issue of ownership of rights.
The court however, directed that the amount left over after paying royalty to the paintiffs from the royalty calculated at 25% of the revenue generated by the defendants Vodafone by using the sound recordings of Sholay in caller tunes, ring back tones etc., be deposited with the court.
Vodafone has also been directed to deposit with the court arrears of the above mentioned difference (or amount left over) with effect from the date when Vodafone was first allowed to exploit the sound recordings by Universal Music and PPL till date of this order, within four weeks.
Furthermore, the defendants now have to pay royalty to the palintiffs on a regular basis, as per terms of the deed of assignment and within the stipulated time as mentioned in the deed and the difference, as calculated above, is required to be deposited in the court on quarterly basis and that too within one month from close of each quarter.
The court also directed Universal and PPL to refrain from allowing anyone else to use Sholay music on digital or mobile platform except as on the terms set out by the court in the present case.
