Delhi High Court Grants Zee Temporary Injunction Against Illegal Streaming Of FIFA World Cup 2026

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted a temporary injunction in favour of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. The court restrained rogue websites from illegally streaming FIFA World Cup 2026 content and directed internet service providers to block access to them in real time.

Zee holds exclusive media rights for the FIFA World Cup 2026 in India across cable, satellite, terrestrial, IPTV, broadband, and mobile transmission platforms. The tournament is scheduled to take place from June 11 to July 19, 2026. The rights were acquired through a Right Confirmation Letter dated June 1, 2026.

Justice Saurabh Banerjee passed the order in a suit filed by Zee against five rogue websites, their domain name registrars, nine internet service providers, and government authorities including the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

According to Zee, its investigators found on May 29, 2026, that websites including soccerbox.me, soccerworldcup.me, dlhd.pk, strumyk.uk and sportsbay.pro were illegally broadcasting matches from the recently concluded IPL 2026.

The websites had also announced the future availability of FIFA World Cup 2026 content, allegedly in violation of Zee's rights under the Copyright Act, 1957.

The court observed that the case, prima facie, appeared to be one of widespread copyright infringement. It noted that such operators "use the worse edge of today's technology to conceal their identities to enrich themselves by infringing upon the legitimate intellectual property rights of right holders."

The court also acknowledged the evolving tactics adopted by infringing operators. It observed that it had become "increasingly convenient for such illegal players to circumvent the processes" by instantly creating alpha-numeric, mirror and redirect variants of blocked websites.

The court further noted that similar infringing activities are carried out through rogue mobile applications. It said that protection against associated domains, URLs, and user interfaces of such applications had become essential if orders protecting intellectual property rights were to have any meaningful effect.

The five named websites have been restrained from communicating, hosting, streaming, or making available any FIFA World Cup 2026 content without authorisation.

Domain name registrars have been directed to lock and suspend the domain registrations of these websites on a real-time basis. They have also been directed to disclose the names, email addresses, and IP addresses of the registrants to Zee.

Internet service providers have been directed to block access to the identified websites. They must also block any subsequently discovered infringing websites, including associated domains, URLs, and user interfaces of rogue mobile applications. DoT and MeitY have been directed to ensure compliance with these directions.

The court's dynamic injunction also extends to unknown rogue websites. It covers mirror and redirect variants that may emerge during the course of the tournament and are later identified by Zee.

Explaining the need for such relief, the court said that if real-time blocking were not granted, "by the time such reliefs for each and every future rogue website individually is obtained from the Court, the intellectual property rights of the plaintiff would already be rendered otiose."

Zee has been directed to file affidavits before the court whenever it notifies additional infringing websites or rogue mobile applications to the domain name registrars and internet service providers for blocking or suspension.

The matter is next listed before the Roster Bench on October 6, 2026.