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Civic Chandran v. Ammini Amma is a landmark case in Indian copyright law decided by Kerala High Court in which the judgment held that even substantial copying of copyrighted work is permissible under the fair dealing exception, if the copying is in public interest. ==Facts== In the year 1952, a famous playwright named Thoppil Bhasi wrote a drama titled "Ningal Enne Communistakki". Since then the drama has been staged over 10,000 times and has garnered widespread appreciation. Thoppil was an active member of the Communist Part of India and through his play he aimed to garner support for his party as well as to organize the people belonging to the allegedly lower strata of the society in a struggle against oppression, exploitation and poverty in order to bring about a revolution which would result in the victory of the workers. This drama was instrumental in the political victory of the Communist Party of India in Kerala in 1957. All the rights in the play were first vested in Thoppil Bhasi and after his demise, the same were transferred to his legal heirs, who are also the plaintiffs of the present suit. In 1995, Defendant no. 1 wrote a drama called "Ningal Are Communistakki" (hereinafter referred to as the counter-drama). This drama was styled as a counter-drama to the drama written by Thoppil Bhasi and was published in the Malayalam edition of India Today, the owner of which is Defendant no. 2, a private company. Defendant no. 3 is the Executive Director, Printer and Publisher of the said company. Defendant 4 is the President of "Rangabhasha", a drama troop and Defendant no. 5 is the Secretary of the same. This drama troop had been making preparations to stage the counter-drama. The drama contained the following categories of characters: *Upper class landlords: Vallya Veettil Kesavan Nair is the character representing this class. *Socially and educationally backward classes *Workers of the Communist Party: Mala, Karampan, Suman, Gopalan, Mathew and Pappu are characters representing this class. Mala is the protagonist of the drama and belongs to the most depressed class of people. While initially, Gopalan and Mala were in love with each other, eventually Gopalan fell in love with Suman, the upper caste daughter of VV Kesavan Nair. By the end of the play, Nair is left in a helpless condition as his own blood fell in love with a class he was exploiting and sympathised with them. Furthermore, Paramupilla, Gopalan's father, who was initially against the CPI, joins Mala and the members of the same party. The drama ends with Paramupilla taking the red flag from Mala symbolizing his change of heart. The counter-drama also contains the same characters and as 9 scenes as opposed to 14 in the original drama. The opening scene shows the red flag and deals with the failure of the war waged by Mala and the other members. This introductory scene ends with the entry to a character playing Thoppil Bhasi who says that he has come to see the real condition of Mala. The counter-drama then continues and contains many scenes that have been copied from the drama. However, all of these scenes were followed by commentary criticizing the play and had been authored by Defendant no. 1. Furthermore, the stage was divided into two parts- the upper platform and the lower platform. The scenes copied from the drama were enacted on the upper platform, whereas he criticism of it was enacted on the lower platform. The plaintiffs alleged that the counter-drama had infringed upon their copyright in the drama and filed a suit against the defendants. They also prayed for an interlocutory order restraining the staging of the counter-drama. The Additional District Judge who was hearing the suit granted the interlocutory injunction in favour of the plaintiff. The defendants then appealed to the Kerala High Court and beseeched it to set aside the order restraining them from staging the play. This appeal was disposed off by the Kerala High Court in the instant case. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Civic Chandran v. Ammini Amma」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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