The Madras high court has passed an interim order on Rajinikanth’s upcoming flick Kabali following producer S Thanu’s strong request to ban the film from being downloaded off websites and streaming portals illegally. The film is slated for its worldwide release on 22 July.
Passing the order, justice Karunakaran banned 169 registered internet service providers from releasing the film, which includes 225 websites as well as cable TV providers. The next hearing in the matter will take place on 8 August.
The petitioner is said to have suffered a heavy loss due to online and video piracy of his movies Therri and Kanidhan, and his apprehension regarding illegal downloading, streaming, etc of his upcoming movie by rogue websites is well-founded. Hence, this court is convinced to grant an order of interim injunction restraining the licensed ISPs listed as respondents 7 to 175, from giving access to the rogue websites listed in the schedule to the petition, and other similar websites indulging in online piracy and infringement of copyright pertaining to the film Kabali, and more particularly prohibiting them in territorial jurisdiction of India from exhibiting, releasing, projecting, screening or in any manner providing platforms for downloading the film Kabali, which is already censored and slated for release on July 22.Justice Karunakaran (as reported by Times Of India)
Rajinikanth’s Kabali will be released in more than 4000 screens all over the world. Piracy has been a great cause of concern for film producers for quite sometime now, but it has been assessed that illegal downloads make for 70% of the revenues earned by Internet Service Providers in India.
(With inputs from ANI)
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