Delhi HC issues 'John Doe' order in content infringement case

New Delhi, Dec 29 The Delhi High Court has issued a 'John Doe' order prohibiting several websites from illicitly copying material from TV show "Unstoppable", which dropped online on over-the-top (OTT) platform 'Aha', managed by Arha Media and Broadcasting.

A single-judge bench of Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva noted that any illegal airing would significantly harm the plaintiff's show's financial interest and lower the programme's worth.

"The balance of convenience also lies in favour of the plaintiff and in case an ex-parte ad-interim dynamic injunction is not granted, the plaintiff shall suffer irreparable loss and injury," the bench said, granting the ex parte ad-interim injunction till the next date of hearing, restraining the respondents from infringing the plaintiff's copyright and/or broadcast reproduction rights in the said talk-show series.

The plaintiff had requested the court to direct the respondents to put a stop to unauthorised and illegal distribution of the plaintiff's purported original work.

Any unlawful reproduction of any aspect of the show, according to the plaintiff's counsel, constitutes a violation of both the plaintiff's copyright and exclusive broadcast reproduction rights.

The plaintiff further argued that because the majority of the infringing websites withheld their names, addresses, and other information, they were added to the lawsuit as "John Doe" parties.

The court ordered the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to instruct all registered Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to remove any infringing links provided by the plaintiff, to instruct ISPs to block erroneous websites mentioned by the plaintiff, and to instruct ISPs to provide the plaintiff with complete details of the illegal websites, including but not limited to name, address, email address, phone number, and IP address.