Viacom18 has secured an interim John Doe order from the Madras High Court restricting over 1250 identified and ‘all other unidentified’ websites, which might be deemed to host links to pirated content, prior to the launch of its movie Force 2. A John Doe order gives ISPs the power to block websites upon request from content owners (hence, 'unidentified' websites), without having to validate each block with the court. The court further directed 40 ISPs and other unidentified ISPs to block the given websites. Interestingly, the current John Doe order granted is for blocking entire websites rather than specific URLs. It's not clear how long the block is valid for. We've asked Viacom18 (which sent us a press release announcing this development) for a copy of the order. Note that the current ruling is unlike the ruling by the Bombay…
