While adjudicating the issue of royalties and broadcasting the Hon’ble Supreme Court held that the TRAI Act ( Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act) would prevail over the Copyrights Act to a limited extent in the case of Star India Private Limited vs. Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and Ors. MANU/SC/1238/2018
“The picture that, therefore, emerges is that copyright is meant to protect the proprietary interest of the owner, which in the present case is a broadcaster, in the “work”, i.e. the original work, its broadcast and/or its re-broadcast by him. The interest of the end user or consumer is not the focus of the Copyright Act at all. On the other hand, the TRAI Act has to focus on broadcasting services provided by the broadcaster that impact the ultimate consumer. The focus, therefore, of TRAI is that of a regulatory authority, which looks to the interest of both broadcaster and subscriber so as to provide a level playing field for both in which Regulations can be laid down which affect the manner and carriage of broadcast to the ultimate consumers. Once the relative scope of both the enactments is understood as above, there can be no difficulty in stating that the two Acts operate in different fields. We do not find on a reading of the impugned Regulation as well as the Tariff Order made that TRAI has transgressed into copyright land. This is for the reason, as has been stated hereinabove, that Regulations which allegedly impact packaging TV channels, pricing of TV channels and the broadcaster’s right to arrange his business as he pleases, all have to be viewed with the lens of a regulatory authority, which is to provide a level playing field between broadcaster and subscriber. We have also noted how the broadcaster is free to provide whatever content he chooses for the TV channels that he chooses to transmit to the ultimate consumer. We have also noted how the broadcaster is free to arrange pricing of his TV channels so long as they are non-discriminatory and do not otherwise have the effect of unreasonably restricting the choice of a subscriber to choose bouquet or a-la-carte channels as has been held hereinabove. We are satisfied that the impugned Regulation and Tariff Order have been passed by a regulatory authority after applying its mind to the objections of the various stakeholders involved after which the Regulation and Tariff Order have been laid down which have, by and large, been initially acceded to by the broadcasters themselves. In this view of the matter, we are of the view that the Copyright Act will operate within its own sphere, the broadcaster being given full flexibility to either individually or in the form of a society charge royalty or compensation for the three kinds of copyright mentioned hereinabove. TRAI, while exercising its regulatory functions under the TRAI Act, does not at all, in substance, impinge upon any of these rights, but merely acts, as has been stated hereinabove, as a regulator, in the public interest, of broadcasting services provided by broadcasters and availed of by the ultimate consumer.
- Since the Telegraph Authority, acting under the Telegraph Act and the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, is required to act in public interest, the jurisdiction of the said Authority is left untrammeled by the provisions of the TRAI Act. It can thus be seen that TRAI and the Telegraph Authority both act in public interest. The TRAI Act, the Telegraph Act and the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, being statutes in pari materia, form a Code, insofar as wireless telegraphy and broadcasting is concerned.
- We are, therefore, clearly of the view that if in exercise of its regulatory power under the TRAI Act, TRAI were to impinge upon compensation payable for copyright, the best way in which both statutes can be harmonized is to state that, the TRAI Act, being a statute conceived in public interest, which is to serve the interest of both broadcasters and consumers, must prevail, to the extent of any inconsistency, over the Copyright Act which is an Act which protects the property rights of broadcasters. We are, therefore, of the view that, to the extent royalties/compensation payable to the broadcasters under the Copyright Act are regulated in public interest by TRAI under the TRAI Act, the former shall give way to the latter.”