License from lyricist not required to play song: HC

A bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and S P Garg, however, made it clear that the right of live performances of sound recordings shall only vest in the original authors, the lyricist and the music composer, of the work.

"Thus, whereas, the owners of copyright in literary and musical works enjoy the right to communicate the said works to the public by way of live performance, the owner of copyright in sound recording does not enjoy similar right to communicate the sound recording to the public by way of live performance.

"A necessary corollary to the aforesaid is that the communication of a sound recording to the public by the owner of the recording in no way encroaches upon the right of the owner of the underlying literary and musical works to perform said underlying works in the public, as correctly held by the single judge," the bench said.

The order of the bench came on a appeal by the Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS), against the decision of the single-judge, who had held that once a license is obtained from the owner of a song, for communicating it to the public, including by broadcasting, a separate license is not necessary from the original author of the musical work. (MORE)