Hotels Providing Cable Tv In Rooms Must Obtain Copyright Licence: Calcutta HC

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has held that a hotel providing cable television connections in its guest rooms cannot escape liability for infringement of copyright merely because the cable operator supplying the signal has itself obtained a licence from the copyright society. 

A Division Bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md. Shabbar Rashidi set aside an order of the District Judge, Darjeeling, and restored an interim injunction sought by The Indian Performing Right Society Limited (IPRS) against Hotel Appolo & Tours Private Limited, which operates Appolo Hotel.

IPRS, a copyright society to which its member authors and composers have assigned communication-to-the-public, public performance and mechanical rights in their literary and musical works, had sued the hotel alleging that cable connections installed in every guest room, through which its members' works were being played on in-room television sets, amounted to unauthorised communication of those works to the public. The hotel had neither obtained a licence from IPRS nor paid royalties, despite being asked to do so. The hotel's defence was that it had merely subscribed to cable services from a cable operator who already held the necessary licence, and that paying the cable subscription fee discharged its obligations; the works were being watched privately by guests in their rooms, not shown to the public, and IPRS could not claim royalty twice for the same content.

The Trial Court had accepted this defence and dismissed IPRS's application under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 of the Civil Procedure Code for a temporary injunction, holding that broadcasting rights under Section 37 of the Copyright Act, 1957 were distinct from copyright and that the hotel had no direct involvement in the alleged use of the copyrighted music.

Reversing this finding, the High Court turned to the definition of “communication to the public” under Section 2(ff) of the Copyright Act, whose Explanation expressly deems communication through cable or any other means of simultaneous communication to more than one household or place of residence, “including residential rooms of any hotel or hostel,” to be communication to the public. 

The Bench also examined the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, noting that a ‘subscriber’ under Section 2(i) of that Act is a person who receives cable signals without further transmitting them to any other person. Since the hotel's cable connections were being used by guests other than the subscriber-hotel itself, the Court held that this went beyond the scope of what the hotel's cable subscription entitled it to do.

The Court also relied on Section 52(1)(k) of the Act, which excludes the playing of a sound recording from infringement only where it occurs in a residential common area meant for residents, expressly carving out hotels and similar commercial establishments from this exemption, and only where the activity is not conducted for profit. The judgment observed that although the hotel may not have charged guests separately for the cable facility, it nonetheless added commercial value to its business, holding that “the actions on the part of the respondent surely fell within the meaning of ‘commercial exploitation’ of the literary and musical works owned by the members of the appellant,” and that guests staying in hotel rooms could not be treated as ‘subscribers’ under the 1995 Act.

Placing reliance on the Delhi High Court's decision in Super Cassettes Industries v. Nirula Corner House (P) Ltd. and the Calcutta High Court's own recent ruling in Vodafone Idea Limited v. Indian Performing Right Society Limited, the Bench held that the licence obtained by a cable operator for onward transmission to its subscribers does not extend to a hotel's use of that signal to service guests across multiple rooms, and that such use amounted to a separate act of commercial exploitation requiring its own licence from the copyright owner.

Holding that the hotel was guilty of infringement under Section 51 of the Copyright Act, 1957, the Court found that IPRS had made out a strong prima facie case, that the balance of convenience favoured it, and that continued unlicensed use of the works would cause irreparable loss. The Bench accordingly set aside the Trial Court's order, allowed the injunction application, and restrained the hotel from publicly performing or communicating IPRS's repertoire of works to the public, or from doing so without paying the Authors' Statutory Royalty. The appeal was allowed without any order as to costs.

Appearances:

For the Appellant: Mr. Soumya Roychowdhury, Ms. Samina Khanum, Ms. Gauti Khanna and Ms. Riddhima Sharma, Advocates.

For the Respondent: Mr. Probal Kumar Mukherjee, Senior Advocate, with Mr. Suhrid Sur and Mr. S. Roy, Advocates.

Case Title: The Indian Performing Right Society Limited vs. Hotel Appolo & Tours Private Limited, FMA 322 of 2025