The makers of the Tiger Shroff-starrer A Flying Jatt have secured a John Doe court order on 830 websites that are suspected to offer links for illegal download of their film. The sites will be temporarily blocked for some period. Apart from this, they have also named 38 Internet Service Providers (ISPs), seven individuals and five cable television operators in their plea claiming protection under the Copyright Act.
The Madras high court has granted a restraining order against these parties for ‘recording and allowing others to transmit, communicate or make available, display, release, upload download in any manner whatsoever’ the copies of the film before it is released.
“The plaintiff has invested substantial sums of money in the production of the said film and its promo released officially on YouTube has already garnered over 10 million views,” the court observed during the hearing. John Doe orders refer to “cease and desist” orders passed by a court of law against anonymous entity/entities. John Doe is a term used to refer to an unknown or anonymous person, entity, organisation etc.
Before A Flying Jatt, the makers of Dishoom, Eros International, had sought a John Doe order to block access to various torrent sites to download the film. Earlier, Eros International was denied John Doe order as they had requested the blockade of the entire websites. Later on, the Bombay high court allowed blockage of certain URLs.
The move by various producers was triggered by the pre-release online leak of Udta Punjab and Great Grand Masti, which are believed to have suffered losses due to the leak.