Delhi High Court To Pass Interim Orders In Universal Studios' Suit Against PlayIMDb's Piracy Mechanism
Riya Rathore
8 May 2026 2:31 PM IST
The Delhi High Court on Friday indicated that it would pass orders in a copyright infringement suit filed by Universal City Studios Productions LLLP against PlayIMDb.com and several other alleged rogue streaming platforms.
During the hearing before Justice Tushar Rao Gedela, Universal City Studios detailed what it described as an “ingenious” piracy mechanism through which rogue websites exploit IMDb's infrastructure to facilitate unauthorized streaming of films, including Fast X, the tenth main installment and eleventh overall film in the Fast & Furious franchise, produced by Universal Pictures.
According to the submissions, the piracy scheme allows users to access unauthorized content by simply prefixing the word “play” to a legitimate IMDb URL.
Universal explained that the user is thereby moved out of IMDb's official ecosystem and redirected to the rogue domain PlayIMDb.com, which then uses IMDb's unique “Title ID” as a lookup key to source the film from third-party pirate indexes, cyber lockers, or hidden streaming sources.
Demonstrating the mechanism using Fast X, Universal submitted that IMDb legitimately directs users to licensed platforms such as Amazon Prime, where the film is officially available, whereas the rogue sites bypass those subscriptions and make the same content available for free.
The court characterized the defendants' activities as a clear instance of theft, remarking, "What you call rogue? Yes, completely rogue. Somebody is robbing".
Universal City Studios further alleged that these rogue sites monetize unauthorized content through advertising revenue, which frequently includes advertisement for pornographic content.
Although the "modus operandi" in this case is unique because it leverages IMDb's infrastructure, Universal City Studios argued it remains "out and out piracy" that warrants the same site-blocking relief granted in previous movie piracy cases.
At the conclusion of the proceedings, the court expressed its inclination to grant the requested relief. Referencing a previous site-blocking order from April 2026, Universal City Studios requested similar directions to restrain the rogue domains from further exploiting their titles.
Acknowledging the necessity of an injunction to protect the licensed content of Universal City Studios, Justice Gedela stated, "We'll pass on this," signaling that a formal order would be issued to address the infringement.