Impacts of the new Dynamic John Doe Injunction order from the Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has recently issued a Dynamic John Doe Injunction order in the case of Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) v. Multi-System Operators (MSO), Local Cable Operators (LCO), and Websites/Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) that broadcast the Cricketing Series. 

Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) has the copyright to broadcast the India-England International Cricket Series in July 2022. 

The sporting event was meant to transpire back in 2021 as SPN was granted an exclusive license by the England and Wales Cricket Board Limited to broadcast the tournament in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, and the Maldives in 2021.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has put a halt to the tournament, and it was rescheduled to July 2022. 

As the tournament is a big event, SPN wants full protection for their rights. Therefore, they have sought a Dynamic John Doe Injunction order.

In India, a John Doe Injunction order is an order issued when there are several unidentified parties in a dispute, most typically the owners behind a pirated website. 

As the owners are nearly impossible to be taken into account for their distributing of unauthorized, protected work, the term “John Doe” will be used to label and mark those individuals or organizations. 

In India, it is also known as an ‘Ashok Kumar’ order.

In this case, the order was taken to the next level, to become a Dynamic John Doe Injunction order. 

Dynamic John Doe Injunction order

John Doe Injunction order was usually used to identify pirated websites. However, the problem with pirated websites is that they can be multiplied easily. 

For example, in Vietnam, the strongest movie distributing pirated website to have ever existed was phimmoi.net, which has been taken down by the Vietnamese government along with the efforts of multiple organizations, including that of the United States. 

However, when the site phimmoi.net was brought down, mirror websites such as 2phimmoi.net, phimmoiz.net, phimmoizz.net, etc. were established and continue to exist up until today.

At this very moment, if one searches the term “phimmoi” on Google, they will be directed to the currently active site of the phimmoi branch.

So, how do we solve this problem? By the Dynamic John Doe Injunction order.

As the mirror websites will make the single John Doe Injunction order ineffective (cause it only targets one main website, such as phimmoi.net), the dynamic injunction will extend the main injunction order to all mirror websites, allowing much ease when dealing with infringement activities. 

This order will not only allow SPN to save time, going to the court multiple times every time a new mirror websites pop up in the search engine broadcasting the protected content of the Cricket Series, but also grants the agencies the authority to take necessary steps to take down such mirror websites when it shows up with great speed, protecting the economic rights of the rights holders. 

In addition, if in the future, SPN discovers any other websites/MSOs/LCOs infringing its copyrights in respect of the Cricketing Series, it can approach the Hon’ble Delhi High Court under this Dynamic John Doe Order and seek requisite reliefs.

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