KOLKATA: In the month of July 2020, media giant, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) moved the Bombay high court to restrain television channels Maha Movie and Manoranjan TV from broadcasting its films namely Jung (1996) and Kartavya (1979) without obtaining a license from ZEEL for the same. The court passed an order asking them to suspend future broadcasting of the movies in any form or through any medium.

Maha Movie is a television channel owned by Teleone Consumer Products Pvt Ltd and Manoranjan TV is a television channel owned by Creative Channel Advertising and Marketing Pvt Ltd.

The matter was heard by justice KR Shriram on 16 July 2020 where ZEEL submitted that in the end of June 2020, it learnt that the Teleone Consumer Products Pvt Ltd and Creative Channel Advertising and Marketing Pvt Ltd were broadcasting both the films on their respective television channels without authorisation from ZEEL. Upon collecting data from Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), ZEEL learnt that Jung has been broadcasted thirty-seven times and Kartavya thirty-two times on Maha Movie and Jung has been broadcasted forty-two times and Kartavya nine times on Manoranjan TV till 2 July 2020.

The court held that unauthorised broadcast/exploitation of the suit films on the said TV channels is a violation of the copyright vested in ZEEL. It also added that it was restraining the channels from creating, alienating and/or transferring any rights in Jung to a third party.

By and under a Film Assignment Agreement executed between Soham Rockstar Entertainment and Zeel, the latter acquired exclusive linear rights, on-demand rights, local cable distribution rights, catch up TV rights, syndication rights, editing rights, promotion rights, air borne rights,

surface transport rights, commercial establishment rights, dubbing rights, subtitling rights, Doordarshan rights, home video rights, subtitling rights in all languages of the world including Indian languages, and non-exclusive performance rights, merchandising rights, dubbing rights and clip rights in a total of sixty-four films, including the Jung and Kartavya, for a term of 10 years commencing from 19 July 2017 in respect of linear rights, home video rights, local cable distribution rights, subtitling and dubbing rights for Jung; 1st October 2016 in respect of on-demand rights for Jung and Kartavya; 15th September 2016 in respect of home video rights and

local cable distribution rights for Kartavya, for the entire world, including India and overseas territories.