Recently, the Delhi High Court granted an interim injunction restraining the PIKASHOW mobile application from being broadcasted or accessed in any manner whatsoever in a suit filed by Star India Pvt. Ltd. (“Plaintiff”).
It was the case of the Plaintiff that Pikashow Applications (“Defendant”), through its mobile application, PIKASHOW, hosting/streaming infringing content over which the Plaintiff has exclusive rights. As per the Plaintiff, the PIKASHOW app claims openly to be providing free content from all well-known OTT platforms, including that of the Plaintiff. Further, the Plaintiff alleged that the Defendant is using various circumvention measures to bypass the security set up by OTT platforms to prevent streaming of copyrighted content. In this regard, the Plaintiff has also filed a criminal complaint filed with the DCP Strategic Operations Special Cell, Dwarka, New Delhi.
The court observed that the non-availability of the PIKASHOW app on any mainstream platforms depicts the enormous steps that have been taken by the owners/operators of the app to ensure that its illegal streaming and broadcast continues without any obstruction or hindrance. In light of this, the court restrained the Defendant from making available the PIKASHOW app through any domain names/websites. The court also ordered various websites like 1xBet App, an advertiser on the PIKASHOW app, and GitHub India Pvt. Ltd. which provides infrastructure services for the PIKASHOW app, as well as the government bodies that have been impleaded as defendants to disclose all relevant details pertaining to the app. The court further directed the domain name registrars and government bodies to issue blocking orders against the PIKASHOW app, and against all the current source domains and any further domain names/source domains, that would be brought to notice by the Plaintiff.
Star India Pvt. Ltd. and Anr. v. Pikashow Applications and Ors., Delhi High Court, CS (COMM) 759/2022, Order dt. November 4, 2022.