People who used Streamzy.to to watch movies and television shows found the familiar address unavailable shortly after a new court order was issued in India. The domain stopped resolving after being placed on hold at both the registrar and registry levels.
Streamzy.to is only one part of the action. The Delhi High Court’s temporary order targets 30 alleged pirate streaming operations covering more than 120 domains and subdomains.
HBO targeted 30 pirate streaming operations
The case is officially titled Home Box Office Inc. & Ors. v. Streamzy.to & Ors. HBO told the court that the websites were streaming movies and shows without licences, sometimes as soon as the content was released and, in some cases, before its official release.
The 30 defendants do not represent only 30 web addresses. Several of the alleged operations use many domains, redirects, and slightly altered names. The MP4Moviez group alone accounted for several addresses in the court’s schedule, while other entries covered versions of FMovies, WatchSeries, KissKH, LordFlix, YTS, and MovieRulz.
HBO also said it could identify the companies that registered some of the domains, but not the people operating the sites. Registration details were hidden through privacy services, leaving no reliable contact information for the alleged owners.
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani found that the sites appeared to have the features of “flagrantly infringing online locations.” According to the Delhi High Court order, their ownership details were masked, traceable contact information was unavailable, and most of the content appeared to be unlicensed.
The court also found that piracy was not an occasional or accidental part of the websites. At this early stage of the case, their main purpose appeared to be helping users access copyrighted films and shows without permission.
The order covers ISPs and domain registrars
Many site-blocking orders work mainly through internet service providers. An ISP could be told to stop its customers from reaching a particular address, but the website might remain accessible through another network or from outside the country.
HBO’s order goes further by involving domain registrars. These are companies that manage the registration of web addresses. The court named registrars, including Namecheap and others connected to the targeted domains.
The ruling remains an ad-interim injunction, which is a temporary order issued while the wider case continues. It is not a final judgment against every operator. The court has scheduled further proceedings, and any website that believes it was wrongly blocked could apply to have the restriction reviewed.
Streamzy.to was suspended within a day
Streamzy.to was the lead defendant and the most visible early casualty. Within a day of the order, its domain status showed both clientHold and serverHold.
A clientHold status is generally applied through the registrar, while serverHold comes from the registry responsible for the domain extension. Both prevent a domain from appearing normally in the Domain Name System, which is why entering the address no longer takes you to the site. ICANN explains that a domain placed on hold will not resolve on the public internet.
Other .to addresses named in the case were also affected, including domains connected to FMovies, CinePlay, CineSpot, and BollyFlix. Domains handled by Namecheap reportedly received hold statuses too.
This is more disruptive than an ISP block limited to India. It removes the familiar domain itself, meaning users in other countries could also lose access.
It does not confirm that the people behind Streamzy have stopped operating. A domain name is only the address used to reach a website. The servers, content, and operator could remain in place, allowing the service to move to another address.
That has happened repeatedly with services such as Soap2Day, whose mirror sites continued appearing after earlier blocking orders. Streamzy.to is unavailable, but taking down one address is not necessarily the same as closing the wider operation.