The Bombay High Court passed a John Doe order in favour of Phantom Films to prevent the piracy of the film “Masaan”, produced by Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane under the Phantom Films banner. The order was issued not only against unknown potential infringers but also against named defendants including Sonali Cable Vision, SpectraNet (an internet service provider), Manish Realties, Macassar Productions, and Sikhya Entertainment.<\/p>\n
Phantom Films filed the complaint after discovering websites hosting several links to download the film. The links were dormant at the time of discovery but were expected to become functional upon the film’s release. Apprehending a potential breach of their copyright, the complainants sought to shut down the operation of these links before they could be used for unauthorised access to the work.<\/p>\n
Orders of this kind are referred to in India as the “John Doe” or “Ashok Kumar” orders. They are injunctive reliefs \u2014 in effect “cease and desist” orders \u2014 issued against unknown or anonymous persons or entities. They are used by film studios and copyright owners to compel internet service providers to block access to video sharing, file sharing, and torrent sites used to pirate their works.<\/p>\n
The designation “John Doe” (or “Ashok Kumar” in the Indian context) is used because the complainant is often unaware of the identity of the person who poses a threat to the work. Where the identity of the infringer or potential infringer is unknown, John Doe may be listed as the defendant in foreign jurisdictions; in India, an Ashok Kumar order serves the equivalent function.<\/p>\n
The statutory basis for such orders lies in Order 39 Rule 1 & 2 r\/w Section 151 of the Civil Procedure Code of 1908, which enables courts to grant such relief where the petitioner establishes a strong prima facie case that there is a real probability that the copyrighted work is under threat of piracy or unauthorised network sharing, and that such infringement could result in substantial financial loss.<\/p>\n
John Doe orders have been employed in a range of copyright protection scenarios, including the protection of books ahead of their release, the prevention of movie piracy, restraining the screening of films on cable networks during the period of theatrical release, and preventing the unauthorised broadcast of live sporting events.<\/p>\n
In India, the first John Doe order was issued in the case of Taj Television v. Rajan Mandal<\/em> in 2003, in connection with the requirement of a licence for the telecasting of the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Since then, production houses behind films such as Happy New Year<\/em>, Bodyguard<\/em>, Singham<\/em>, and Bombay Velvet<\/em> have all successfully obtained John Doe orders from the Bombay High Court to prevent piracy ahead of their releases.<\/p>\n This article is for general information and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified attorney before acting on any matter discussed here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Bombay High Court granted a John Doe order to Phantom Films to combat potential piracy of Masaan. Such orders provide critical injunctive relief for copyright holders, as seen in several prominent Indian cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":38,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[7342,312,31,3843,1043,8654,1972],"class_list":["post-26066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyrights","category-intellectual-property","tag-ashok-kumar-order","tag-bombay-high-court","tag-copyright-infringement","tag-film-piracy","tag-indian-copyright-law","tag-internet-service-providers","tag-john-doe-order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26066"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149839,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26066\/revisions\/149839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Disclaimer<\/h2>\n