The Delhi Supreme Court has refused to allow ‘Legends League Cricket’ to stay in a lawsuit brought by a person who claimed to have created a tournament featuring retired legendary players, saying that no one can claim copyright to the game of cricket that contains various permutations and combinations. from “innings” and “overs”. Judge Asha Menon said that plaintiff Samir Kasal — who alleged that the defendants, i.e. the organizers of ‘Legends League Cricket’, had misappropriated his idea — failed to provide prima facie evidence for granting a preliminary injunction and that none of the features of his concept reflected original thought.
The plaintiff’s ideas have long been in the public domain and “no one can claim an exclusive right to any of these ideas,” the judge added.
The first edition of ‘Legends League Cricket’ started on January 20 in Oman.
Justice Menon further said that the format of “Legends League Cricket” was “significantly different” from that of the plaintiff and that the defendants’ organizers did not copy any of the plaintiff’s ideas or concepts.
The cricketers cannot be banned from playing for the defendants or any other organizer as the plaintiff cannot claim such an exclusive right, she said.
Nevertheless, in order to protect the plaintiff’s interests, the judge instructed the defendant organizers to “keep clear accounts of their income and expenses related to the competition(s) being organized in Oman (UAE) within a month after the conclusion of the competition matches”.
The court has subpoenaed organizers over Kansal’s lawsuit and said that if a suspension order is passed at this stage, the loss to the defendants, the players, the sponsors, the media partners and the general public cannot be compensated.
“To say that because the plaintiff devised a league match with retired cricketers in a ‘T-10 test format’ to play in venues where there is Indian diaspora, and that his idea had become his exclusive right, is to stretch it to far from being able to claim an injunction against the ‘Legends League Cricket’ tournament organized by the defendants,” the court said on January 19.
“In this case, the fundamental agreement will be the ‘game of cricket’ and no one can claim the copyright in the ‘game of cricket’. Various permutations and combinations in the form of playing the ‘game of cricket’ have been developed over the centuries. It is therefore reasonable that there can also be no copyright on the evolution of cricket over a period of time, from a ‘5 Day Test Match Series’ to the last of ‘T-20 Matches/One-Dayers’. Such permutations and combinations would involve “innings” and “overs,” it added.
The claimant, represented by senior lawyer Sandeep Sethi and lawyer Srivats Kaushal, argued in court that he was a well-known figure in the sports industry and had collaborated with the organizers of the accused in holding a restricted two-team cricket tournament, namely: “Asia XI” and “World XI” made up of cricket legends from the world who have since retired.
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The plaintiff argued that while no tournament as conceptualized by him could be held in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, he subsequently learned through media reports that the defendants were hosting a tournament similar to his own, called “Legends League.” cricket”.
In its order, the court noted that there was no document proving that there was a “firm contract” involving mutual obligations between the plaintiff and the defendants and that the claim of “confidentiality” against the defendants, as alleged by the plaintiff, cannot continue indefinitely.
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