Hearing a suit by the Indian Singers Rights Association (ISRA) against film producer Karan Johar's production house Dharma Productions for royalty against 'performance' in the film 'Gunjan Saxena - The Kargil Girl', the Delhi High Court issued notice and summons to the production house. Hearing a suit by the Indian Singers Rights Association (ISRA) against film producer Karan Johar's production house Dharma Productions for royalty against 'performance' in the film 'Gunjan Saxena - The Kargil Girl', the Delhi High Court issued notice and summons to the production house. Referring to the bare provisions of the Copyright Act, the court said that this is because the definition of 'performer' in Section 2(qq) of the Copyright Act, under which the singers claim rights, includes a Singer within its sweep but the “performers' right implies any visual or acoustic presentation made live by one or more performers. Every performance has to be live in the first instance whether it is before an audience or in a studio”.
Performers' rights were first introduced in the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 by amending Section 38 and introducing Section 38A and 38B to the Copyright Act. The association has claimed that 'Gunjan Saxena' commercially utilizes three performances of its singer members which were originally part of earlier cinematograph films.
The association prayed that as per the scheme arrived at, the tariff for the performers' rights was fixed, therefore, Dharma was bound to deposit the said amount before the Court pending final decision.