Indian FIFA Club World Cup Piracy Blocking Order Felt Globally

In a move to protect the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 from piracy, DAZN has obtained an injunction from the Delhi High Court. The order targets not just local internet service providers, but also global domain name registrars such as Namecheap and 1API. As a result, the injunction is having a worldwide effect, rendering several pirate sites unreachable for users anywhere on the planet.

The High Court in Delhi, India, regularly issues site blocking orders, requiring Internet providers to block access to pirate sites.

These orders have targeted sites that stream movies and TV series, both from Hollywood and Bollywood, but also sites that specialize in pirated sports streams.

Last week we covered a new “superlative” injunction that temporarily extends blocking powers to deal with pirated cricket matches, protecting the ongoing England Tour of India. However, “dynamic+” orders are still being issued and while less advanced on paper, they can still be quite effective.

FIFA Club World Cup Piracy

In a recent complaint, broadcaster DAZN requested a blocking order against six sports streaming sites, including buffsports.me and vipbox.lc. With this action DAZN, which is available for roughly $5 per month in India, aims to protect its broadcasting rights for the FIFA Club World Cup 2025, which is currently ongoing.

The request targets nine local ISPs and five domain name registrars – 1API, NameCheap, Netim, and Tucows – all of which operate globally. The fifth company is Sarek Oy, also known as Njalla, which isn’t a typical registrar but acts as a privacy intermediary instead.

These requests are common by now and, after reviewing the evidence, the New Delhi High Court found a prima facie case of copyright infringement by the websites and granted the site blocking injunction.

From the order
 

“If an ex parte ad interim injunction in favor of the plaintiff is not granted, the plaintiff will likely suffer irreparable loss and injury,” Justice Saurabh Banerjee concluded.

ISPs and Domain Registrars Take Action

When presented with the order, the named ISPs and domain registrars (DNRs) must “..take steps to immediately block the said domain names associated with the defendant websites on real time basis.” That also applies to companies that are not incorporated in India.

Shared by Verdictum this week, the injunction was issued late last month and does indeed appear to be having an effect.

Aside from local ISPs blocking access to these domain names, buffsports.me, sporthd.me, and piratemedia.me are all offline. These domains all display the clientHold status code used by registrars to suspend domain names.

Defendant Websites and their Domain Name Registrars

These suspensions suggest that NameCheap, 1API, and Netim have all taken action, likely in response to the Indian High Court order. The domains that were registered through Tucows and Njalla remain operational at the time of writing.

Global Reach

While this type of injunction has been granted before, the global reach of this type of Indian order is worth highlighting. The suspended domains are effectively unreachable around the world, which makes this a highly effective enforcement option.

Of course, the targeted websites can easily switch to new domains, which is typically what happens, but then rightsholders have the option to extend the scope of their request by asking registrars to block these additional domains as well.

Thus far, the pirate sports streaming problem is far from defeated. It largely remains a game of whack-a-mole, with new sites, domains, and services constantly appearing, while global calls for more effective blocking actions increase.

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A copy of the the Delhi High Court order issued by Justice Saurabh Banerjee is available here (pdf, via)

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