Delhi HC Restrains Piracy Sites from Streaming ‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’

Star India Pvt Ltd, one of the country’s leading entertainment companies, is the plaintiff in this case. Star India is currently awaiting the release of its cinematographic film- ‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’ exclusively on its digital platform ‘Disney+Hotstar.‘The plaintiff argued that it has the exclusive rights to communicate the film’s contents to the audience through any transmission, including the internet.

The plaintiff contended that defendants No. 1 to 42 have been engaged in acts of piracy by making copyrighted content available for download and providing access to infringing and illegal content. The other defendants include various internet and telecom services providers, two producers of the film in question, and the domain name registrar of defendants.

The movie ‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’ is expected to garner enormous revenues. The plaintiff apprehends that defendants No. 1-42 would violate the copyright and other rights of the plaintiffs by broadcasting or in any different manner dealing with the film as mentioned earlier, which would cause irreparable harm and damage to the plaintiffs.

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The Hon’ble Delhi High Court restrained defendant No. 1-42 from communicating to the public the film as mentioned earlier, which would amount to infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright and broadcast reproduction rights. The Court also directed the domain name registrar of defendants to suspend the domain registration of the defendants above. Further, the Court also directed the relevant Government bodies to issue a notice calling upon the various internet and telecom service providers registered under it to block access to the multiple domains that pose a potential copyright infringement.

Reference: Star India Pvt. Ltd & Anr. v/s Moviesghar Art & Ors. CS(COMM) 364/2021

Author: Sushmita Gupta, student at NALSAR University of Law

Disclaimer: This brief is intended to provide general guidance to the subject matter. It does not contain legal advice. For any specific advice/corrections, write to [email protected]

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