Facts:

• M/s Deshmukh and Company Publishers (P) Ltd. (The Appellant), a leading book publisher, filed a lawsuit seeking various legal remedies including a declaration of copyright ownership in 14 books, a negative declaration against the Defendants' rights to these works, a permanent injunction against the defendants, and compensation of Rs. 10,000/-.
• Respondents included a publisher, Avinash Khandekar and the legal heirs of the renowned Marathi literary figure late Shri V.S. Khandekar.
• The Plaintiff's case involved a 1974 agreement where Shri Ram Jayawant Deshmukh was given the exclusive rights to publish the late Shri V.S. Khandekar's books. After Khandekar's death, a dispute with his heirs led to legal action against Deshmukh to cancel the agreement. The court decision allowed Deshmukh to publish only 13 of Khandekar's books, restricting the publication of others.
• Mrs. Sulochana Deshmukh formed the Plaintiff company and transferred her publishing rights to it. The company filed a suit to claim exclusive publishing rights over 14 books.
• The Defendants, represented by Anil Mehta, disagreed with the plaintiff's claims, disputing the interpretation of the 1974 agreement and alleging that the plaintiff's predecessors had not fulfilled their obligations.
• The Trial court decided that the agreement was merely a license for publishing certain books, with conditions like royalty payments, based on precedent and admissions related to the book “Yayati”.
• Further legal actions included the Plaintiff seeking declarations and injunctions concerning Khandekar's works, however interim relief was denied due to a lack of a prima facie case and balance of convenience.
• Aggrieved by these decisions, the Plaintiffs appealed against the judgments and the order refusing interim injunction in Copyright Suit No. 1/2002, challenging the trial court's verdicts in both cases.
  

Background/ Procedural Posture:

• The Appellant, who lost a copyright case involving Shri V.S. Khandekar's literary work, appealed two decisions. One was against the dismissal of the suit by the Third Additional District Judge, Pune, in Civil Suit No. 2 of 1998. The other was against the refusal of an interim injunction by the Vth Additional District Judge, Pune, in Copyright Suit No.2 of 2002.
• The court decree in Civil Suit No. 1174 of 1981 was challenged in Regular Civil Appeal No. 40 of 1989 in Kolhapur District Court. The appeal partly succeeded, with an injunction granted against printing or publishing sixty books of late Shri V.S. Khandekar that were not published on time. However, the injunction was not granted for thirteen books that were published on schedule. The suit for the remaining twelve books was dismissed.
• The Present dispute was about the publisher's rights for these twelve excluded books and an extra book, "Sonerin Swapna Bhangaleli," not covered in the 1973 agreement.
  

Main Issue:

What is the difference between an assignment and a license in copyright law?