The Delhi High Court moved quickly against sites illegally streaming the World Cup, and then corrected itself when a defendant showed the list was overbroad. Which is roughly how the process should work — and makes the reaction of one news site harder to defend.
The order
The Delhi High Court ordered ISPs to block websites illegally broadcasting the FIFA World Cup, in a suit by Multi Screen Media (MSM) Satellite claiming exclusive broadcasting rights. The initial order covered 472 websites; an order of 1 July narrowed this to 219, on an application by one of the defendants.
The rights involved
MSM held the sole and exclusive right to broadcast the World Cup in India across its channels, along with radio rights, mobile transmission rights and broadband internet transmission rights, and operated a mobile application adaptable to all device formats.
Anyone hosting, streaming, broadcasting, making available for viewing or downloading, or communicating to the public through the internet was therefore violating those rights.
The plaintiff submitted its list of 472 sites as “rogue websites” infringing rights conferred by Section 37 of the Copyright Act, which deals with broadcast reproduction rights. It argued the loss extended beyond itself to government revenue through tax payable on subscriptions, and that it was during live broadcast that it could recover the substantial investment made in acquiring exclusive rights.
The court granted an ex parte injunction, in furtherance of which ISPs blocked the sites.
The correction matters
The revision from 472 to 219 is worth dwelling on, because it is the part that answers the strongest objection to blocking orders. A list compiled by a rights holder will contain sites that do not belong on it, and one defendant’s application was enough to remove more than half.
That is the mechanism working: an over-inclusive list, challenged, narrowed by the court. It also explains why the remedy for a wrongly blocked site is to go to the court that made the order — which had just been demonstrated to work.
The article
Among the coverage was a piece on a prominent news website titled How to access websites blocked by the recent Delhi High Court order — listing ways to view the content, from changing the URL to using services and software that change your IP address.
There was a caveat: the article said it concerned the legitimate websites caught in the list of 219. But readers were given neither the list of 219 sites nor the list the publication considered legitimate. And the publication is not the body that decides which are legitimate. What governs is the order of the court — ISPs blocked these sites in furtherance of that order, exercising no discretion of their own.
So it is inappropriate for a well-known news website to publish circumvention instructions, because in effect it encourages piracy. If that reads as premature, note that the article linked to another on the same site titled To pay or steal: how piracy is offering a better TV and movie viewing experience — and invited readers to comment with other ways they had found to access blocked sites.
This is not a vendetta against the publication or its correspondent. But the article defeats the purpose of an order restraining defendants who are likely to host, stream, broadcast, retransmit, exhibit, make available for viewing and download, provide access to and communicate to the public. Even accepting the author’s framing, the same techniques work on every site in the list — and the question remains who is entitled to decide which are legitimate.
The bottom line
Courts are regularly criticised for not acting swiftly where urgency is real, and for not granting injunctions. When a court does act quickly, publishing a guide to circumventing its order reflects disregard for the order and encourages piracy.
The onus of reporting responsibly — of being mindful of interference with the law — sits particularly heavily on journalists writing for reputed news houses.
Where blocking has gone since. The practice matured considerably. The Delhi High Court’s approach in UTV Software Communication Ltd. v. 1337x.to (2019) developed the concept of the “rogue website” into a structured test, and introduced dynamic injunctions allowing a rights holder to extend an existing order to mirror sites as they appear, without a fresh suit each time. Live sports remains the sharpest case for it, since the entire commercial value sits in a window of a few hours.
The takeaways
- Section 37 broadcast reproduction rights underpinned the blocking order.
- The list was narrowed from 472 to 219 on a defendant’s application — the process working.
- Only the court decides which sites are legitimate — not publishers, not ISPs.
- Dynamic injunctions followed in later cases, extending orders to mirror sites.
Frequently asked questions
What are broadcast reproduction rights? Rights under Section 37 of the Copyright Act held by broadcasting organisations, infringed by rebroadcasting, recording or communicating a broadcast to the public without licence.
Can a court order ISPs to block websites in India? Yes — courts have ordered ISPs to block sites infringing copyright, with the practice developing into structured rogue-website tests and dynamic injunctions.
What if a legitimate website is wrongly blocked? The remedy is to apply to the court that made the order, as a defendant successfully did here, reducing the list from 472 sites to 219.
What is a dynamic injunction? An order allowing a rights holder to extend an existing blocking order to mirror or redirect sites as they appear, without filing a fresh suit for each one.
Useful official resources
- The Copyright Act, 1957
- Delhi High Court