Delhi High Court Orders Blocking of Piracy Websites Streaming Stranger Things and Friends
The Delhi High Court has directed the blocking of several websites that were illegally streaming pirated movies and TV shows such as Stranger Things, Friends, The Squid Game, The Jungle Book, Batman and other popular content.
Justice Tejas Karia passed the order while hearing a case filed by global entertainment companies including Warner Bros, Netflix, Apple, Disney and Crunchyroll. These companies approached the Court stating that several rogue websites were hosting and allowing downloads of their copyrighted content without permission.
The Court granted a “Dynamic+ injunction”, a legal remedy that allows copyright owners to quickly act against not just existing piracy websites but also their mirror sites, redirected links and new variations that may appear later. The Court said that copyrighted works deserve protection from the moment they are created, especially because pirated content is often uploaded immediately after release.
Justice Karia observed that despite issuing multiple takedown notices, the piracy websites continued to illegally stream and distribute the content, causing serious financial losses to the rightful owners. The Court noted that such real-time streaming and downloading clearly amounts to copyright infringement and requires urgent action.
As part of the order, domain name registrars were directed to lock and suspend the infringing websites within 72 hours. They were also asked to submit the Basic Subscriber Information (BSI) of these websites to the Court in a sealed cover. Additionally, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were instructed to block public access to the identified websites within the same time frame.
The Court held that swift judicial intervention was necessary to prevent further harm to the copyright holders and to curb the growing menace of online piracy.
