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Australia's Federal Court has responded to an urgent request by the major Hollywood studios, Netflix and Apple, to protect the movie “Wicked: For Good” from some of the world's most notorious pirate streaming sites. After issuing an initial blocking order in November, an unprecedented second was issued two weeks later. Targeting “Additional Urgent Access Means”, the order empowers the studios to tackle pirate site countermeasures immediately, without further recourse to the Court.
While Australia’s site-blocking mechanism has made few enemies since 2018, it hasn’t been known for being fast.
As discussed earlier this year, accuracy has traditionally been favored over speed, which is contrary to less cautious approaches taken in other countries.
After an unprecedented request and cooperation from the Federal Court, Australia will now step up several gears and show whether it can achieve both.
Not Just Another Blocking Order
When Justice Halley handed down his order in Universal City Studios LLC v Telstra Limited [2025] FCA 1390 on November 12, in most respects it was much like any other issued in recent years.
Member studios of the MPA – Universal, Disney, Paramount, Columbia, Warner Bros., Netflix and Apple (plus Viacom) requested an injunction under Section 115A of the Copyright Act, requiring around 50 local ISPs (operating as Telstra, Optus, Vocus, TPG Telecom, Aussie Broadband and Superloop) to block 52 overseas-based pirate streaming sites.
The copyright works applicants aim to protect necessarily play a key role in blocking proceedings. The difference in this case was the emphasis placed on the Universal Pictures movie Wicked: For Good and its inevitable appearance on high-traffic sites using familiar branding: HydraHD, Hurawatch, Braflix, Soap2Day, MyFlixer, HiAnime, OnionPlay, 123movies, SolarMovies, Gomovies, Fmovies – the list goes on……and on.
With Wicked: For Good‘s international release scheduled for November 17, Australian ISPs agreed to take all reasonable steps to disable access to 23 sites as a matter of urgency, with the remaining 29 to be blocked within the usual span of 15 business days.
In order to have a fighting chance against adaptable piracy platforms, a dynamic blocking order was issued, meaning that new domains and IP addresses could be added to deal with the inevitable countermeasures. Under normal circumstances, that can take time but for Wicked: For Good‘s theatrical release in Australia, time was already running out.
Additional Urgent Access Means
Less than two weeks after handing down the initial order, Justice Halley was handing down a second. Dated November 25, the order reveals that studios filed an urgent application for an order to tackle countermeasures deployed by the sites.
Operating from new domains, described in the order as “Additional Urgent Access Means”, the sites were already illegally distributing Wicked: For Good which was set to continue playing in theaters in Australia until the end of 2025.
New domains, IP addresses, and/or URLs are normally reported by rightsholders to the ISPs, who are then expected to respond within seven working days. If neither the respondent nor the court requires the matter to be relisted, the ISPs have a further 15 working days to disable access.
The prospect of the movie being distributed unhindered for free until Christmas Eve was considered unacceptable.
Urgent Additional Blocking Order
On November 28, just over two weeks after handing down the initial blocking order, Justice Halley authorized a second.
In response to the studios’ calls for urgency, Universal City Studios LLC v Telstra Limited [2025] FCA 1485 targeted the ‘Additional Urgent Access Means’ (new domain names/IP addresses/URLs) deployed by the sites to circumvent the previously implemented blocks.
The court recognized that standard procedures, which require notification and then a response period, would allow the sites to operate unhindered for at least 22 days.
“This would have the consequence that those sites would remain accessible for the majority of the theatrical release period for the film ‘Wicked: For Good’ which would have the likely effect of reducing the commercial success of the film as infringing copies of the film would be available without charge from the Additional Urgent Access Means,” Justice Halley noted in his order.
Rapid Response
To combat this, the new order required the ISPs to disable access to the new means of access, whether domain names, IP addresses, or URLs, by 4.00 pm on Friday, November 28, 2025. As far as we’re aware, a response time this short is unprecedented in Australia.
The ability to quickly respond to blocking countermeasures is crucial. For Australia, this is new territory but shouldn’t be unnecessarily difficult. However, as months of delay have decreased to weeks and now just days, rightsholders elsewhere in the world – especially in the live sports arena – still aren’t satisfied, even when blocking takes place within hours. In some areas, rightsholders consider 10 minutes to be reasonable.
Under those demands, Australia’s traditional accuracy would face challenges, with or without a reduction in overall piracy rates. Right now, despite aggressive worldwide blocking measures, piracy continues to trend up.
The orders dated November 12 and November 28 are available here and here
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