The Bombay High Court has recently granted a temporary injunction against social media influencer Gaurav Taneja, popularly known as "The Flying Beast," in a copyright infringement case initiated by Castrol India Ltd.

The Court prohibited Taneja and his associates from infringing on Castrol's exclusive copyright for creative materials from its “Castronomy” marketing campaign. It also directed Taneja to remove a video of the campaign shared on his social media platforms.

Justice RI Chagla, in a single-judge bench ruling, recognized Castrol as the legitimate copyright owner of the creative content developed for the campaign. This included videographic and photographic materials captured during a zero-gravity flight experience designed to promote Castrol’s automotive products.

"In view thereof, by exploiting the Raw Data without the authorisation of the Plaintiff, the Defendant No. 1 in my prima facie view has infringed the Plaintiff’s copyright subsisting in the Raw Data," the Court held.

The dispute began when Taneja, who had participated in the campaign alongside others, initially posted a video featuring promotional content for Castrol alongside footage from the zero-gravity flight. However, he later uploaded an edited version of the video to his social media, removing the promotional segments related to Castrol.

This edited video was subsequently made publicly available on his channels.

Castrol contended that Taneja’s actions constituted clear copyright infringement, as he shared the video without permission and deleted the promotional content originally included.