Pirate sites and services are a major problem for rightsholders and can be challenging to deal with. In India, however, recent court orders have proven to be quite effective.
Indian courts have issued pirate site blocking orders for over a decade. In recent years, these have transformed into a powerful legal tool, allowing rightsholders to protect existing and future works with relative ease.
More recent orders are not limited to ISP blocking, domain name registrars are also required to act. These broad injunctions, partly shaped by Hollywood companies such as Netflix, Disney, and Universal, are starting to have an impact globally.
In February, we reported that an Indian dynamic+ court order had targeted several prominent pirate sites, including Zorox.to and Upmovies.to. The injunction, issued by the New Delhi High Court, required local ISPs to block access to the domains. In addition, domain name registrars were required to take action.
The domain blocking efforts are limited to the Indian border, but the injunction’s effect didn’t stop there. US-based domain registrar Namecheap suspended movie-web.app and other domains, per the injunction, which caused the pirate site to become inaccessible globally.
Dynamic+ Domain Blocking and Suspension
When first reporting on this powerful anti-piracy measure, we expected similar orders to follow. And indeed, last week, the High Court of New Delhi issued a new dynamic+ blocking order targeting several dozen pirate streaming portals.
The latest Dynamic+ injunction, issued by Justice Anish Dayal, aims to target “hydra headed” pirate sites and instructs ISPs to block 42 domain names, linked to 26 sites. They include popular pirate sites such as Animeflix, Vegamovies, Losmovies, and EZTV, which have millions of monthly visits.
The goal of the court order is to protect existing video content, including films such as ‘Encanto’ and ‘Aquaman’, as well as TV series ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘One Piece’. The same order also covers future works that have yet to be created.
“To keep up with the hydra-headed nature of the infringement actions of such infringing domains/websites, this Court finds it fit to grant a ‘Dynamic+ injunction’ to protect copyrighted works as soon as they are created, to ensure that no irreparable loss is caused to the owners of copyrighted works,” the order reads.
Similar to previous injunctions, the Court stresses that the injunction also applies to mirror sites that may pop up in the future, and to sites that provide access to copyright infringing content using the same piracy ‘brand’.
Domain Name Registrars
While site blocking orders are quite common in many countries today, the High Court goes a step further by including domain name registrars in its order. This is a key part for rightsholders, as suspended domain names become unavailable globally if a registrar takes action.
The order requires registrars (DNRs) to suspend the domain names. In addition, they must share the personal details of the associated account holders, including their names, addresses, and payment information.
“The DNRs of the infringing websites, upon being intimated by the plaintiffs, shall lock and suspend the said domain names. In addition, any details relating to the registrants of the said domain names including KYC, credit card, mode of payment, mobile number, etc. be also provided to the plaintiffs,” the order reads.
Our previous coverage showed that Namecheap complies with Indian orders, presumably because of the risk of being banned from operating in the country if it fails to act. This wasn’t an incident, as several Namecheap-registered domains in the latest court order have been suspended too.
At the time of writing, several Animeflix domains are suspended, including Animeflix.live, which had over 34 million visits last month. The popular vegamovies.llc domain, which is also registered with Namecheap, now shows the dreaded “clienthold” status.
Vegamovies was called out by the U.S. Trade Representative earlier this year, which branded it one of the most notorious pirate sites; one that’s particularly popular in India.
The High Court order also took down Losmovies.id, but not through Namecheap. Losmovies, which had millions of monthly visits, is registered through the Indonesian domain name company Belidomain, which appears receptive to the foreign court order.
Not All Domains are Suspended, Yet
As usual, the sites behind the suspended domain names are likely to pop up again under new domains. However, it’s clear that these injunctions are much more effective than traditional blocking orders.
Not all registrars have immediately taken action. The order includes several domains registered though Tucows, NameSilo, and EPAG, for example, which remain accessible for now. PorkBun, on the other hand, swiftly complied, as it did previously.
Making matters more confusing, several Namecheap registered domains remain online as well. These are all .to domains. The Tonic registry doesn’t disclose the registrar in its Whois database, and it doesn’t support the “clienthold” status either.
With the previous High Court order, we also noticed that Namecheap didn’t suspend the .to domain names at the same time as the others. However, after a brief delay, they were all suspended eventually.
The domain of popular TV-torrent site eztvx.to is not registered though Namecheap. The registrar is unknown to us, but the domain name remains accessible at the time of writing.
Given the effectiveness of this Indian court action, we expect that Netflix, Disney and others, will continue to apply for similar court orders in the future.
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A copy of the High Court order is available here (pdf), via LawBeat. The full list of all domains covered by the court order can be found below. All domains must be blocked by Indian ISPs. Not all are suspended by their respective registrars, however.
– moviesl23.la
– 123movies.com.pk
– movies123.com.pk
– 123movies-hd.com
– hdmaza.pk
– animeflix live
– animeflix.co.in
– animeflix.lol
– animeflix.mobi
– myflixer.onl
– vegamovies.yt
– vegamovies.llc
– vegamovies.ph
– Vegamovies.rsvp
– vegamovies.cash
– gogoanimex.to
– hdfilmer.net
– hdobox.se
– cinego.tv
– eztvx.to
– f2movies.mx
– favmovies.to
– soaper.tv
– netfilm.app
– mydownloadtube.net
– movieuniverse.li
– movieuniverse.se
– losmovies.id
– mdufree.tv |
– isaimini.com.lk
– isaimini.com.hn
– isaimini.com.sb
– isaimini.com.es
– megashare-website.com
– animedekho.com
– proxyninja.net
– yify.guide
– yify.app
– huramovies.to
– myanimeindia.in
– cartoonsarea.xyz
– animeheaven.me
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Source : Hollywood Takes Down Animeflix, Vegamovies and Others With Broad Anti-Piracy Order
