Another Tamil film gets 'John Doe' court order

The Madras High Court today restrained various Internet service providers from infringing the copyright of the producer of the Tamil film 'Mirattal' by uploading it and facilitating its download.

Passing the interim order in a civil suit filed by Metronet Multimedia Private Limited, Justice R Subbiah ordered notice to a dozen Internet service providers and an individual.

The applicant also sought a 'John Doe' order to cover all unknown persons to block all URL (Unique Resource Locator) carrying the image of the Tamil film, excepting the trailer and the songs of the film, starring Vinay, Sharmila and Santhanam, in the Internet medium.

A John Doe order is directed against someone whose identity will not be specifically mentioned or known when such a restraint order is sought or issued.

It was submitted that production of the Rs seven crore film, scheduled to be released on August two, had started in September 2010 and was completed in May this year.

The applicant apprehended that many unknown persons had the propensity to pirate the original version of the film and distribute it to the audience worldwide in many ways, including its reproduction on the Internet through websites. There was no machinery to check the blatant copying of the original work.

The infringement that could take place by unknown persons could be checked only by blocking the URL, which was an address pointing to the resource from which it was available for download.