In a significant ruling, the Kerala High Court has lifted the restrictions imposed by a District Court on the OTT and global release of the Malayalam film Porattu Nadakam.

Justice Syam Kumar V.M., who presided over the case, found the plaintiffs’ copyright infringement claims lacking sufficient legal basis, paving the way for the film’s unrestricted release.

The District Court had earlier permitted only theatrical screenings of the film, subject to a ₹7.5 lakh security deposit by the defendants. The plaintiffs—comprising a production company and an author—had sought to block the movie's release on OTT platforms and television, alleging that its script plagiarized their work titled Subham.

The plaintiffs argued that Subham, authored in 2018, had been exclusively assigned to the production company through an agreement. They claimed the defendants, Emirates Productions and others, had misappropriated significant elements of their script to produce Porattu Nadakam. Based on these allegations, an Advocate Commissioner was appointed to compare the scripts, who identified three common elements in their plots.

The District Court relied on this report to impose a temporary injunction in October 2024, restraining the film's release beyond theatres. However, the defendants countered that Porattu Nadakam was independently conceived, inspired by a real-life incident from 2019. They challenged the validity of the Advocate Commissioner’s findings and argued that the District Court had erred by relying on superficial similarities without conducting a detailed legal analysis, as mandated by the Supreme Court’s precedent in R.G. Anand v. Deluxe Films.

The High Court agreed with the defendants, stating that appointing an Advocate Commissioner to compare the scripts was a flawed approach. Justice Kumar emphasized that determining copyright infringement requires more than a cursory comparison of plot elements. “The assessment should focus on whether a viewer, after seeing the work, is left with an unmistakable impression that one work is a copy of the other. Such a task cannot be delegated to an Advocate Commissioner,” the court observed.

The court also noted that the Advocate Commissioner’s report failed to demonstrate that the defendants had copied the “fundamental, essential, and distinctive” aspects of Subham. The three similarities cited in the report were deemed neither substantial nor sufficient to establish copyright infringement.

Additionally, the court pointed out that the plaintiffs had already accepted monetary compensation through a consensual order, indicating a preference for financial remedies over injunctions. The balance of convenience, the court held, tilted in favor of the defendants, who would suffer irreparable harm if the OTT release was delayed.

In conclusion, the High Court ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to establish even a prima facie case of copyright infringement. It overturned the District Court’s injunction, allowing Porattu Nadakam to be released on OTT and other global platforms.

Cause Title: M/S Emirates Production and Others v. Akhil Dev S. And Another [FAO NO.156 OF 2024]

Appearances:

• For the Defendants: Advocate Mohammed Siyad M.F.
• For the Plaintiffs: Advocates Anil Prasad, K.R. Monisha, Krishna Prasad S., Sabu P. Joseph, C.N. Sreekumar, Manju Paul, Beyon T. Varghese, K.S. Muhammed Shefin, Sindhu S. Kamath, Swapna S.K., Rohini Nair, Suraj Kumar D., Sunilkumar K.K., and A. Karthika Sivan