the domains.
MUMBAI: Pirating websites in India beware. December has brought some bad news for you. Earlier this month, the Delhi High granted a permanent injunction order against 71 web sites which were pirating media tech firm Unisys Infosolutions content online.
Unisys owns the copyright to a catalogue of 60 plus regional films which it exploits on YouTube under the channel Saga Hits, on its own OTT platform Kableone and other third-party platforms. The films have either been produced by it or in collaboration with other producers or acquired and include titles like Zindagi Zindabaad, Cheta Singh, Snowman, Kulche Chole, Television, Posti, Maa, Warning, Ikko Mikke, Happy Go Lucky, Manje Bistr, The Black Prince and Zindagi Kitni Haseen Hay.
Sites such as desicinemas.tv, desicinemas.pk, tellygossips.tv, movies23.pk, among many others were illegally show casing Unisys’ catalogue of films and making money either off advertising online or through subscription fees. Hence, it filed a suit against them, including Google, ISPs, the department of telecommunications (DoT) and ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity) as defendants.
The Delhi high court, after listening to Unisys’ lawyers arguments, passed an injunction against the sites from showing the films and because the owners of the sites are not locate-able, it ordered Google to stop indexing them on its search engine. Additionally, it ordered the registrars and internet service providers to block the rogue domain names and make them inaccessible from Indian shores. Finally, it ordered DoT and Meity to ensure that its orders for blockage are followed to the T by issuing a government notification in this regard.
The court also issued a Joh Doe order under which any other future infringing or rogue sites would be treated similarly. Additionally, the court ordered Unisys to continue to inform the court about the progress of the blockage of the current rogue web sites. mentioned in the petition
The counsel for Google who was present in the court accepted the government’s notice and order and agreed to go ahead with the government’s directions.
However, a media observer stated that while the order is a landmark one, Unisys will have to be on the alert as the rogue websites will easily move the content to another domain or URL.
“The battle to overcome piracy is not over until those behind the piracy are put behind bars and the servers taken down,” she said. “This requires multinational coordination between legal authorities in neighbouring countries like Pakistan. Some of this is already happening in Europe where coalitions against piracy in various countries are working together with the police to book online pirates, apart from taking blockage measures.”
Is anyone out there listening?
