UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS LLC. & ORS.    (Plaintiffs) Vs.  FZTVSERIES.MOBI & ORS   ( Defendants)

CS(COMM) 833/2023

(Delivered by JUSTICE PRATHIBA M. SINGH)

Facts: In a continued effort to curb dissemination of pirated content and its availability on internet, the Plaintiffs who are well established Hollywood Studios have approached this Court seeking blocking and removal of their copyrighted content, from the internet, accessed through rogue websites. The Plaintiffs in the present matter before this Court are engaged in the production and distribution of a large volume of original creative content including cinematograph films, TV series, motion pictures.

Issue: Whether the defendants’ websites are to be blocked by the court?

Arguments on behalf of counsel for plaintiffs:

Mr. Saikrishna, ld. Counsel for the Plaintiffs, submits that post the passing of the order of dynamic+ injunction in Universal City Studios LLC. & Ors., several of such rogue websites are being blocked on an international level and not just within the territory of India, which is therefore having a positive impact to curb piracy on the internet. Ld. Counsel further submits that the decisions of the Delhi High Court on curbing of piracy are having vast implications as DNRs are locking and suspending the domain names, rendering them inaccessible. As per ld. Counsel, this is leading viewers to avail access to legitimate platforms as was evident in the recent World Cup Cricket finals 2023 when one of the OTT platforms had a logging in of more than 5.3 crores, thus multiplying the viewership for such platforms and curbing viewing of pirated content. The ld. Counsel for the Plaintiffs submits that the Plaintiffs have issued legal notices to all the Defendant websites, however only few of them reverted to the notices.

Held: The court disposed off the present case holding that, “the Plaintiffs have established a prima facie case for grant of an injunction. Balance of convenience is also in favour of the Plaintiffs in view of unauthorised and illegal use of Copyrighted contents by such rogue websites leading to significant monetary losses to the Plaintiffs. Irreparable harm and injury is likely to be caused if the injunction as sought is not granted. Accordingly, Defendant Nos. 1 to 45 arrayed as Annexure A, which are all rogue websites shall stand restrained from streaming, reproducing, distributing, making available to the public and/or communicating to the public, in any manner, any copyrighted content of the Plaintiffs including future works of the Plaintiffs. In the facts and circumstances as set out above, an ex parte ad interim injunction is granted restraining the Defendants, who are all rogue websites, from in any manner streaming, reproducing, distributing, making available to the public and/or communicating to the public any copyrighted content of the Plaintiffs including future works of the Plaintiffs, in which ownership of copyright is undisputed, through their websites identified in the present suit or any mirror/redirect websites or alphanumeric websites, or any variations thereof including those websites which are associated with the Defendants’ websites either based on the name, branding, identity of its operator, or discovered to provide additional means of accessing the Defendant’s website, and other domains/ domain along with their sub-domains and subdirectories, owners, website operators/ entities or even sources of content.”