The Indian Music Industry (IMI), an industry consortium of 142 music Companies, has obtained orders from the Calcutta High Court directing all Internet Service Providers (387 ISPs) to block 104 music sites. Court orders were obtained on 27th of January, 6th February, and the 1st and 2nd of March 2012.

ISPs have been directed by the court to block all 104 sites within 36 hours. It essentially has the order against Songs.pk as a sample. Apurv Nagpal, CEO of Saregama, told MediaNama that the first order was against songs.pk, and subsequent court orders covered the rest of the sites. The IMI made a case against each website, he added, with proof of piracy of content from labels by each site.

Indian content businesses have increasingly been taking the legal route to combat piracy: T-Series filed lawsuits against several major companies like YouTube (which was later settled), MySpace, Yahoo and Ibibo, and even got the founders of Guruji.com arrested. Reliance BIG Pictures began getting generic “John Doe” orders trying to force filesharing sites to prevent movie uploads, and getting some of them blocked. This is by far the biggest anti-piracy initiative till date.

How They Will Block?

The court has asked ISPs to block the sites using any of the three methods:

DNS Name blocking: which ISPs use to for looking up IP addresses corresponding to domain names. However, it is possible for filesharing sites to change their domain name: as we reported earlier,like Songs.pk renamed as Songspk.pk

IP Address blocking using routers: IP address blocking using routers. However, it is possible for sites to be hosted on alternate servers, once blocked, so this might not entirely address the issue.
DPI based URL blocking: “This mechanism involves configuring the ISP’s network management system to monitor traffic by means of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and reset or block a customer’s connection to specific Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) as defined in the network management system’s Access Control Lists” DPI-based URL blocking is necessary can be used to block only a portion of a website, for example, “www.example.com/home.html” only, instead of “www.example.com.”
What This Means

The information docket lists each of the 387 ISPs in India, all the 104 music sites, and certain legitimate sites in India, which provide legal options for consumers: Saregama, Nokia Music, Flipkart, Cyworld, 7digital, Gaana*, In, IndiaONE, Meridhun, MyBand, Raaga, Radio One, Saavn, Dhingana, Artist Aloud and Telugu One.

The intent is evident : at one end, IMI is using legal means to stop illegal downloads, and at the other, it is propping up legal businesses. This could act as a fillip for legal sites – perhaps users might choose to stream music over the cloud or buy it online instead of downloading for free. On the other hand, they could find alternate means, through file sharing sites and torrents. Nagpal told that the IMI will go after filesharing sites next, so it appears that the battle against online piracy of Indian music is well and truly on now, and music labels are beginning to take online revenues a lot more seriously.

This might be a consequence of changes in mobile marketing and mobile ringbacktone subscription policies, enforced by the TRAI, which might have impacted mobile revenues.

Here is the list of the sites which IMI wants to block via court orders.
Some have been banned and some will be banned:

1. 22beats.com
2. absongs.com
3. apniisp.com
4. apunkabollywood.com
5. bollyextreme.com
6. bollymaza.com
7. bollywood-hits.com
8. bollywoodmp4.com
9. bollywoodstop.com
10. coolgoose.com
11. dacoolsite.com
12. desibajao.net/desihits.net
13. desifunda.net
14. desisong.com
15. dhakdhakradio.com
16. downloadming.com
17. freeindisongs.com
18. funmaza.com
19. gogrumogru.com/songs.ind.in
20. karachimag.com
21. koolfree.com
22. lovepaki.com
23. mastmag.com
24. mobraja.com
25. mp3fundoo.com
26. mp3paradice.com
27. musicduniya.com
28. musiqbuzz.com
29. muskurahat.com
30. netmasty.com
31. pakfellows.com
32. paktimes.com
33. playlist.pk
34. punjabcentral.com
35. radioreloaded.com
36. radiorhythmz.fm
37. radiorocking.com
38. rkmania.com
39. songbox.pk
40. songsinn.com
41. songsnonstop.com
42. songsrack.com
43. songsrip.com
44. songzila.com
45. topupmp3.com
46. town67.com
47. 100india.com
48. musicindiaonline.com
49. aflatune.com
50. bharatlover.com
51. cckerala.com
52. centralmusiq.com
53. chimatamusic.com
54. desimusic.com
55. desishock.net
56. dhool.com
57. dishant.com
58. filmicafe.com
59. filmimusic.com
60. fun1001.com
61. hindimirchi.com
62. sunomusic.com
63. telugufm.com
64. yolike.com
65. andhravilas.com
66. smashits.com
67. songdad.com
68. songslover.net
69. ragalahari.com
70. rameshmusic.com
71. freeplaymp3songdownload.com
72. freefundoo.com
73. desijammers.com
74. thenisai.com
75. mp3feelings.com
76. mazafm.com/hindimirchi.com
77. kjyesudas.com
78. jaanfm.com
79. gr8click.com
80. funscrape.com
81. chirkutonorkut.com
82. tamilmaalai.com
83. tamilkey.info
84. vmusiq.com
85. sevanthi.com
86. tamilwire.com
87. a2ztamilsongs.com
88. mymaza.com
89. germantamilan.com
90. 123music.mobi
91. desiden.mobi
92. longmp3.mobi
93. krazywap.com
94. mobile-zon.com
95. mymp3.mobi
96. samwep.com
97. spicyfm.com
98. wapindia.net
99. wapmaza.mobi
100. waprocks.in
101. mobidreamz.com
102. waptamil.net
103. zinkwap.com
104. songs.pk