Viacom18 gets court relief in fight against online movie piracy

The company secured a John Doe interim order from the Madras High Court, restricting over 1,250 identified and other unidentified websites from making pirated copies of its latest release 'Force2'

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | November 23, 2016

Viacom18 has secured a John Doe interim order from the Madras High Court, restricting more than 1,250 identified and all other unidentified websites from making illegal copies of Viacom18's latest release 'Force2', available for public viewing over internet. In the order, the court directed 40 major internet service providers (ISPs) and other unidentified ISPs to block all such pirate websites illegally making the film available over internet.

Sujeet Jain

Sujeet Jain, Group General Counsel and Company Secretary, Viacom18, said, “I welcome this order from the Hon'ble Madras High Court. It is estimated that India loses $2.5 billion to online movie piracy every year. With increased penetration of technology and internet in India, piracy through online distribution is expected to continue to be a major source of revenue leakage for the movie industry. This order is a significant development for the film industry in its fight against online piracy. As immediate next step, we've also launched an investigation into identifying the source of piracy at the threshold level and we will be soon taking strict action on that front.”

Viacom18 had earlier successfully secured John Doe orders against infringement of its films Drishyam and 'Manjhi-The Mountain Man' as well.

The high courts in certain states are currently directing injunctions against URLs only, which according to many filmmakers is ineffective. They say URLs are easily mirrored and new URLs pop up in no time. The John Doe Order for Force 2 blocking access to entire pirate websites should therefore come as relief and aid to filmmakers across country in their war against piracy.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com