Delhi High Court: In a case wherein the plaintiff, Star India (P) Ltd. filed the present suit seeking protection against unauthorized, illegal distribution of the film Brahmastra Part One: Shiva, Prathiba M. Singh, J.*, granted the decree of permanent injunction restraining Defendants 1 to 18 and 39 to 359, from in any manner communicating, hosting, streaming, and/or making available for viewing and downloading, without authorization, on their websites or other platforms, through the internet in any manner whatsoever, the film Brahmastra Part One: Shiva and content related thereto, so as to infringe the plaintiffs exclusive rights and copyrights.
Background
The plaintiff was a leading production and distribution company in India which had produced several Hindi films and one such cinematograph film was Brahmastra Part One: Shiva which was released in 2022 starring Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Mouni Roy, Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan and many more. The present suit was filed by the plaintiff seeking injunction against several rogue websites and other related platforms who were involved in the piracy of the said film.
The present case was filed by the plaintiff apprehending that the rogue websites, Defendants 1 to 18 were likely to broadcast or communicate infringing copies of the film on various websites which would directly impact the plaintiff’s business and erode the value of the film besides infringing its copyright. This Court had granted an interim injunction in favour of the plaintiff on 02-09-2022, in Star India (P) Ltd. v. 7Movierulz.tc, 2022 SCC OnLine Del 2744. It was further submitted that despite knowledge of the order dated 02-09-2022 passed by this Court, the defendants continued to infringe the plaintiff’s content and to circumvent the Court orders by creating mirror/redirect rogue websites of the domains already blocked by the Internet Service Providers (‘ISPs’) and DoT.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court opined that piracy of cinematograph films was one of the biggest causes for losses in the film industry. Over the years, judicial pronouncements have protected the rights of producers in cinematographic films. The Court observed that various legislative steps had been taken to curb piracy and recently, amendments had been carried out in the Cinematograph Act, 1952 to deal with piracy in a much stricter manner. Moreover, the Cinematograph (Amendment) Act, 2023 had been enacted and notified on 04-08-2023 to curb the menace of film piracy.
The Court observed that the present suit revealed that the mushrooming of websites had become the norm, especially, in respect of popular copyrighted content. The Court noted that the Domain Name Registrars (‘DNRs’), DoT, MEITY, ISPs had all given effect to the various orders passed in this case, however, the Court observed that in most of these cases, the identity of the persons or entities who were running these infringing websites remained anonymous or known only some times to the DNRs. Under such circumstances, insofar as the rogue websites and mirror websites were concerned, since there was no representation or defence which had been filed, permanent injunction restraining infringement, was liable to be granted.
Thus, the Court granted the decree of permanent injunction restraining Defendants 1 to 18 and 39 to 359, on both ‘http’ and ‘https’, their owners, partners, proprietors, officers, servants, employees, and all others in capacity of principal or agent acting for and on their behalf, or anyone claiming through, by or under it, from in any manner communicating, hosting, streaming, and/or making available for viewing and downloading, without authorization, on their websites or other platforms, through the internet in any manner whatsoever, the film and content related thereto, so as to infringe the plaintiffs exclusive rights and copyrights.
The Court, after considering that so many websites were streaming or were found infringing the plaintiff’s copyright, decreed the suit against the defendants for damages of Rs. 20,00,000 which would be jointly and severally payable by the mirror websites to the plaintiff. Further, the Court relied on Uflex Ltd. v. Government of Tamil Nadu, (2022) 1 SCC 165 and held that the actual costs of the suit were also liable to be awarded to the plaintiff.
[Star India (P) Ltd. v. 7Movierulz.tc, 2023 SCC OnLine Del 5413, decided on 25-08-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Plaintiff: Yatinder Garg, Akshay Maloo, Rimjhim Tiwari, Advocates
For the Defendants: Piyush Beriwal, Sahaj Garg, Disha Choudhary, Anandita Aggarwal, Mrinal Ojha, Debarshi Dutta, Anand Raja, Tanya Choudhry, Advocates
*Judgment authored by: Justice Prathiba M. Singh
