BENGALURU: A Bengaluru-based music company has filed a case against Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Supriya Srinate and Jairam Ramesh for copyright infringement. In a complaint, the music label stated on Friday that audio-visual advertisements featuring Rahul Gandhi released by INC for their marketing campaign had used music from MRT Music without seeking any permissions.

M. Naveen Kumar, Partner, MRT Music, stated, “An entity such as the INC has to set an example for the Indian citizens, however in this scenario, it itself is violating the laws of the land and infringing our copyright and intellectual property rights, which we have acquired through huge investments. This act on the part of INC sends a completely wrong signal to the Indian public and is completely contrary to the efforts of safeguarding our copyrights. This grave infringement will be challenged by us to the fullest effort.”

The music company claims to hold music rights of over 20,000 tracks in Kannada, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil and has invested huge sums of money to acquire classic old music to one of the biggest movies of the year ‘KGF Chapter 2’ in Hindi.

An FIR in Crime No. 362/2022 for offenses punishable under sections 403, 465 and 120B r/w Section 34 of the IPC and under Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and under Section 63 of the Copyrights Act, 1957 as against the Indian National Congress and the aforementioned individuals who have been arrayed as Accused no. 1 to 3 respectively.

The counsel representing the music label has asserted its complaint only pertains to the unlawful fraudulent and illegal actions of the members of the steering committee in so far as violating the copyrights owned by MRT Music.