Appearing on behalf of Universal, Advocate Sai Krishna Rajagopal submitted that the 12 infringing websites – including vegamovies.run, themoviesflix.com.mx, tamilblasters.buzz, and uwatchfree.so – were providing illegal content for free, the availability of which was supported by advertisements on the website.
Thus, they were liable for infringement under Section 51(a)(ii), Section 51(b) and Section 51(a)(i) of the Copyright Act, for making a copy of the original content, storing it by electronic or other means and communicating the original content to the public, it was argued.
Interestingly, the concept of ‘pirate branding’ was also mentioned by the counsel appearing for Universal. In this regard, the Court noted,
“Evidence collected by the investigator shows that the operators of the Defendant Websites are using known “pirate branding” to signal to users that the Defendant Websites are merely new iterations of sites that have been blocked earlier. Learned Counsel further submits that the Defendant Websites are in the form of new iterations and that the new iterations almost invariably have the same functionality and purpose as the earlier blocked sites…”
Source: Barandbench
