In a swift move to shield the much-anticipated Telugu film Kannappa from digital piracy, the Delhi High Court has ordered social media giants Meta and X (formerly Twitter) to scrub their platforms of pirated clippings and reels of the movie. The directive came through an ex parte interim injunction aimed at curbing the viral spread of unauthorized content.
The petition was filed by Twenty-Four Frames Factory, the production house helmed by actor Mohan Babu, which is backing Kannappa. According to the plea, an alarming number of rogue websites had begun circulating not just clips—but even the full pirated movie—online. The filmmakers warned the court that this digital leak was damaging commercial prospects, derailing distribution deals, and dealing a blow to the film’s reputation before its official release could even gain momentum.
Justice Jyoti Singh, who presided over the matter, found merit in the plea and directed both Meta and X to take immediate action. Meta was told to disable URLs hosting infringing content on Instagram and Facebook—detailed extensively across dozens of pages in the petition. X was similarly ordered to wipe the flagged content off its platform. The takedown orders were grounded in the framework of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
Interestingly, the production house disclosed that while 191 offending videos had already been removed from Meta, a staggering 1,585 pirated links were still live and kicking. Meta’s legal team assured the Court they would comply fully with the directives.
With piracy rearing its head even before the film’s full-scale release, the Court’s orders stand as a stern reminder that in the digital age, the first battlefield for cinema is no longer the box office—but the browser tab.
