Academy of General Edu., Manipal and Anr. V. B. Malini Mallya (MANU/SC/0146/2009)

By
Nishant Kewalramani

Dr. Kota Shivarama Karanth developed a new form of `Yakshagana'- a form of ballet dance. As per his will any royalty earned on any of his literary works would belong to Ms. Malini Mallaya the respondent in the case. Academy of General Edu. Manipal, the appellant on the other hand is the institution with which Dr. Karanath was associated in the capacity of the Director. The appellants performed the new form of Yakshagana in memory of Dr. Karanth for which they were sued by the respondent. Injunction was granted against the appellants by both the trial court and the High Court via differing interpretations of clauses of the will.

The issues that came up for consideration before the Hon’ble Supreme Court were, firstly whether the copyright act recognize a category called “dramatic literary” work i.e. the text of a play or other such dramatic work and secondly was the appellant’s performance a fair use.

Answering the first issue in the negative the Court concluded that though various encyclopedias have come to recognize this term dramatic literary work none the less the copyright act identifies a fine distinction between the two and the performance has to be seen as a dramatic work and cannot be dragged to the literary work category even if it contains “passages of great literary taste”. Therefore new form of `Yakshagana' as performed by the appellants was a dramatic work per se.

For the second issue the Court concluded that the appellant being an educational institution and they performing the dramatic work in front of a “non-paying audience” makes it a fair use and thus this act falls outside the clutches of infringement as per section 52 of the Copyright Act 1957.
Therefore the Court concluded that though the copyright in the literary works of Dr. Karanth vested in the respondent as per the will and the appellants are restrained from commercial exploitation of such works but none the less the appellants can use the works in compliance with the fair use terms of section 52 of the Copyright Act, 1957.