Rediff.com Facing Lawsuit Filed By T-Series In Delhi High Court
By Nikhil Pahwa - Fri 28 Sep 2007 03:43 AM PST
A lawsuit has been filed against Rediff (NSDQ: REDF).com and Ram Gopal Verma Films Private Ltd. in the Delhi High Court by Super Cassettes Industries Limited (T-Series) for copyright violation. As per the lawsuit, Rediff placed video clips of songs from two Hindi Films - Nishabd and Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd on their website, of which T-Series claims to own sole copyrights. T-Series has sought damages amounting to Rs. 20 lakh (around $50,000) from Rediff. We’ve gleaned this information from a recent filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by Rediff. Rediff’s response in the extended entry:
As per the SEC filing, Rediff says that:
(i) these song clips were uploaded as an editorial feature due to the recent release of the two films believing these to be newsworthy, in the course of our regular activity and not for commercial purposes; (ii) the clips in question were not downloadable by our users; (iii) these clips were accompanied by editorial review as normally done for a film’s release; (iv) these were uploaded on our sites with the permission of the producer of these films or their publicists who had provided us with such clips for the intended use; and (v) the use of the these clips on our website was fair use, uploaded for its newsworthiness for promotional review and was non-commercial in nature.
We’ve learned that the lawsuit was filed around the same time that we had reported about T-Series’ lawsuit against SantaBanta.com. The next hearing is in November. This was all before the launch of Rediff’s video sharing platform iShare, which Rediff agrees (as per the filing) could be subject to litigation within or outside of India, and costly to defend. Details of earnings, shareholding and other litigation in the filing here.





