What the court ordered
On September 15, 2026, Justice Jyoti Singh of the Delhi High Court passed an ex parte ad interim order in a copyright suit brought by Amazon Seller Services Private Limited. The order came three days before the pan-India theatrical release of the film 'VIBE' on September 18, according to MediaNama's report. It covers 11 websites, including Cinevood, PVRPlay and 1TamilMV. Domain registrars must lock and suspend the domains within 36 hours, and ISPs must block them immediately.
The unusual part is what happens next. Amazon may notify government authorities, ISPs and registrars directly about newly discovered mirror sites, which can then be blocked without a fresh court order. Amazon must afterwards tell the court which sites were blocked and seek their impleadment where necessary. The next hearing is set for January 19, 2027, with a Joint Registrar date of October 7, 2026.
The strongest case for the order
The case for the order is real. A film's commercial value is concentrated in its first days. Pirate operators know this, and they respond to a block by re-launching under a new domain within hours. A court order that needs a new suit or application for every mirror is obsolete before it is served. Amazon told the court it holds the film's rights under a work-made-for-hire arrangement with Drongo Films LLP. It also pointed to earlier piracy of 'Nishaanchi', 'Mirzapur' and 'Bhool Chuk Maaf' shortly after release. Judges have long accepted that this is a 'hydra-headed' problem, and courts elsewhere have answered it with dynamic orders.
The Delhi High Court did not invent this approach. In UTV Software Communication Ltd. v. 1337X.To (April 10, 2019), Justice Manmohan adopted a test for 'flagrantly infringing online locations'. The factors include whether the site's primary purpose is infringement, whether it is indexed or categorised to facilitate infringement, its demonstrable disregard for copyright, whether courts elsewhere have already blocked it, and how heavily it is accessed. The judgment stressed that orders should be tailored and proportionate. It also said an injunction need not end piracy entirely to be justified, because reduction is itself an important goal.
The 'dynamic+' injunction extended this further. In September 2024, Justice Saurabh Banerjee applied it to protect works such as 'Friends' and 'Stranger Things' as infringement occurs, without a return to court each time.
Where the VIBE order goes further
The difference is the sequence of review. The reporting available describes a mechanism in which the plaintiff identifies a site, notifies ISPs and registrars, and the block takes effect. The court learns of it only after the fact. The 2019 framework tied blocking of mirror sites to the flagrantly-infringing test, applied by a judicial officer on evidence. Under the mechanism described for VIBE, the party with the commercial incentive makes that determination first. Judicial review then happens on the plaintiff's own account, and only after the block is in place.
This matters for three reasons.
- Error costs fall on third parties. A mislabelled site, a shared-hosting domain or a legitimate site on a recycled IP address is blocked with no hearing. The order lets sites 'not primarily engaged in infringement' approach the court with an undertaking to seek modification. That remedy arrives after the harm, and it puts the burden on the wrongly blocked site.
- Registrars and ISPs have no reason to push back. They face contempt exposure if they hesitate and no exposure if they over-block. Their incentives run entirely toward compliance.
- The window is short but the record is thin. The order runs until at least January 19, 2027. Nothing in the reporting indicates the reports to the court will be public, so no outside observer can audit how many sites were blocked or on what evidence.
India's constitutional tradition points the same way. In Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (March 24, 2015), the Supreme Court insisted that restrictions on online speech must bear a 'proximate relationship' to the grounds in Article 19(2). Copyright blocking is a different legal footing from Section 66A, and a site that only distributes pirated films has a weak speech claim. The principle still applies: a restriction on access should be checked by someone other than the party who benefits from it.
A proportionate alternative
None of this requires giving up speed. The court can keep real-time blocking and add cheap safeguards:
- Prior certification. Amazon files a short affidavit with each mirror-site notice, showing the site redirects to or replicates a listed defendant. It copies the notice to the court registry at the same time, so review starts on day one.
- Public block log. ISPs and registrars publish, or file with the court, a running list of what was blocked and when. That makes over-blocking visible.
- Sunset and takedown-on-completion. Blocks tied to a film's release window should lapse or be reviewed once the theatrical and early streaming period ends. Otherwise domains stay dark long after the harm they were meant to prevent.
- Fast reversal. A wrongly blocked site should be able to seek modification within days. The current route depends on an undertaking and a formal application.
These steps cost little and fit inside the mechanism the court has already created. They would also make the approach easier to defend when a future order is challenged by a party that is not a pirate.
Why it matters
Piracy is a real harm, and India's film industry has a legitimate interest in curbing it. But the same architecture can be reused by any rights-holder for any title, and the order does not appear to limit who can wield it. Private parties acting directly on ISPs and registrars, with courts reviewing after the fact, is a significant delegation of state-backed blocking power. The Delhi High Court is right to take piracy seriously and right to want speed. It should require that the first review happen before the block or alongside it, not months later.