Disputes between music companies and web portals offering free downloads of music are considered the biggest threat to the music business. Criminal charges were recently filed against Sequoia Capital-funded Guruji.com – a web portal with links for the free download of Hindi songs – by the music label T-series. Guruji.com’s premises was raided and its CEO, Anurag Dod, was arrested.
Associate
Lall Lahiri & Salhotra
Media reports suggest a first information report (FIR) was lodged with the Bangalore police alleging that the copyright of Super Cassettes Industries (which owns T-series) was infringed by Guruji.com. Reports from July 2008 also say that a legal notice was sent to Guruji.com regarding this infringement. Dod’s apparent response to this notice was that they were not doing anything beyond providing a “music search” function and that the site merely guided users to songs that they could have accessed using any other search engine.
Setting a precedent
This matter is likely to set a precedent pertaining to copyright liability in cases where copyright protected material is downloaded in India. This has been dealt with extensively in the US, first in the case of Napster and thereafter, Grockster, Kazaa, Limewire and other similar websites. Napster was found liable for copyright infringement as it gave users access to copyright protected material.
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Doyel Sengupta is an associate in the litigation department at Lall Lahiri & Salhotra, an IP boutique based in Gurgaon.
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