Delhi High Court Restrains "Rogue" Websites From Streaming Brahmastra

The court also issued summons on the lawsuit by the plaintiff and listed the case for further hearing on November 29.

Delhi High Court has restrained the unauthorised streaming of upcoming film 'Brahmastra: Part One - Shiva', scheduled to hit the theatres on September 9, by several "rouge" websites, saying piracy has to be curbed and dealt with a heavy hand.

Justice Jyoti Singh passed the ex parte interim order on a lawsuit by Star India Pvt Ltd, co-producer of the Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt-starrer film, while noting that the availability of the film online at the same time as its theatrical release or in close proximity of the release would severely impact the producers' financially and also erode the value of the film.

"There is no gain saying that piracy has to be curbed and needs to be dealt with a heavy hand and injunction against screening of copyrighted content by rogue websites ought to be granted... Plaintiff has made out a prima facie case for grant of ex parte ad-interim relief," said the court in its order dated September 2.

"Defendants No. 1 to 18 (rogue websites) and all others acting for and/or on their behalf are restrained from in any manner hosting, streaming, retransmitting, exhibiting, making available for viewing and downloading, providing access to and/or communicating to the public, displaying, uploading, modifying, publishing, updating and/or sharing on their websites through the internet or any other platform, the film 'Brahmastra: Part One - Shiva' and contents related thereto, so as to infringe the Plaintiff's copyright therein, till the next date of hearing," the court ordered.