'83': Bombay HC rejects plea restraining sports drama's OTT release on Hotstar, Netflix

The makers of the sports drama '83 took a sigh of relief after the Bombay High court has refused to restrain Hotstar and Netflix from streaming the Bollywood film. The film is based on the historic 1983 World Cup where team India under the captainship of former captain Kapil Dev emerged as the winner. The bench of Justice Riyaz Chagla was hearing a suit filed by Mad Man Film Ventures against Reliance Entertainment Studio and others. 

Mad Man had filed a suit against Reliance Entertainment Studios Pvt. Ltd, Phantom Films Pvt. Ltd., Star India Pvt. Ltd., Netflix Global LLC, and others seeking an injunction against the release of the film 83 for alleged copyright infringement. According to Live Law, Mad Man Film Ventures stated that in light of consent terms, the ownership of intellectual property was divided between them (37.5%), Reliance Entertainment (37.5%) and Vibri Media Pvt. Ltd., one of the producers of the film (25%). 

Bombay High Court rejects plea to restrain '83 OTT release
 

As per Live Law, due to the non-compliance of this clause by Reliance, the other party had not granted its consent to the platforms to broadcast the same, and hence Hotstar and Netflix were asked to restrain from exploiting their rights received through Reliance without Mad Man’s prior consent, said Tulzapurkar.
 
 Advocate Virag Tulzapurkar who is fighting the case for Mad Man argued that as per the clauses in the contract, for the first 10 years period, it was entitled to receive a percentage of the net collection from Reliance. He further added that until such payment is not fully received, it had no obligation to consent to the delivery of the film for exploitation of digital or satellite rights of the film.
 
Significantly, the court held that Consent Minutes being cited by Mad Man, would necessarily apply only to future agreements Reliance entered with third parties and not existing agreements. Moreover, consent terms to which neither Netflix nor Star was a party, could not bind them, Justice Chagla said.

While Reliance Studios claimed that Mad Man failed to question the OTT platform's rights, Star India and Netflix argued that they were not a party to the consent award dated 3rd March 2021 and/or certain Consent Terms dated 6th December 2021 and thus none of its terms were binding on them.

They claimed through their counsels – Senior Advocate Sharan Jagtiani and Advocate Ashish Kamat -- that permission to exploit rights in the film were vested in favour of Star India in 2017 and in favour of Netflix Global in the year 2019 i.e., much prior to the Consent Terms of December 2021 vide which Mad Man was allotted 37.5% ownership in the Intellectual Property Rights of the Film. It was also contended that Mad Man's rights of exploitation only begins at the expiry of 10 years i.e., the First Cycle as elaborated under Clause 1.2 and 1.4 of the Consent Terms. Moreover, Netflix and Star have antecedent rights for both digital and satellite rights for a period of 10 years. 

IMAGE: Pixaba/Twitter/Taran_Adarsh