Delhi High Court: In the present suit filed by the Plaintiff against Defendants and other parties who are unnamed, technically called as ‘John Doe’ who are claimed to be rogue websites involved in infringing the Plaintiff’s rights by unauthorizedly and illegally disseminating the Plaintiff’s original content in its talk-show series ‘Unstoppable’ over their platforms, Sanjeev Sachdeva, J., granted an ex parte ad-interim injunction thereby restraining the Defendants 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 hosting, streaming, broadcasting, re-transmitting, exhibiting, making available for viewing and downloading, providing access to and communicating to the public, displaying, uploading, modifying, publishing, updating and/or sharing including to its subscribers and users on their websites, through the internet, or in any manner or platform whatsoever, the Plaintiff’s talk show series titled ‘Unstoppable’ season 1 and season 2 or any other future seasons.
Plaintiff claims to be in the business of procurement, development, distribution and dissemination, broadcasting/rebroadcasting of entertainment programs, such as cinematographic feature films, serials, talent hunts, reality shows, talk show series, documentaries, etc. using existing and emerging technologies through its online video/ OTT platform named which operates in the Telugu and Tamil Languages, in domestic and international markets. The Plaintiff claims to be the sole and exclusive proprietor of the Intellectual Property Rights in a talk-show series ‘Unstoppable’ which airs on its OTT Platform.
The Court noted that considering the investment, Plaintiff is alleged to have made, in the talk-show series, any illegal broadcasting would severely affect the monetary interest of the Plaintiff and diminish the value of Plaintiff’s talk-show series.
Thus, the Court granted an ex parte ad interim injunction against the defendants including John Doe and directed Department of Telecommunication (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) registered with them, to pull down all infringing links as provided by the Plaintiff.
The Court further directed the DoT and the MeitY are directed to block and provide to the Plaintiff, if so requested by the Plaintiff, the complete details of the rogue websites.
[Arha Media and Broadcasting Limited v. www.vcinema.com, CS (COMM) 925 of 2022, decided on 28-12-2022]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Mr. Pravin Anand, Mr. Ameet Naik, Mr. Dhruv Anand, Ms. Madhu Gadodia, Ms. Udita Patro, Ms. Megha Chandra, Ms. Tarini Kulkarni and Ms. Rasika, Advocates for the Plaintiff;
*Arunima Bose, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.