Last month, several Indian Internet users noticed that their favorite torrent websites were blocked, displaying a rather ominous message that said they could face up to three years in prison for simply viewing copyrighted content. The Bombay High Court, which had asked ISPs to show users a relevant message, is not happy at the wordings of the message that ISPs showed. This prohibition also includes porn sites as well.
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It is mentioned in the warning that accessing of such content may charge a fine of Rs. 3,00,000 or an incarceration up to 3 years. Social media was in uproar then, as heavy torrent users were rattled with such warning.
“The offence is not in viewing, but in making a prejudicial distribution, a public exhibition or letting for sale or hire without appropriate permission copyright-protected material”, Times of India quotes Justice Gautam Patel as saying. Any person aggrieved by the blocking of this URL may contact the Nodal Officer at xyz@[isp-domain] for details of the blocking order including the case number, court or authority to be approached for grievance redressals.
Indian Copyright Act 1957 was misinterpreted and exploited by the ISPs while warning its users from viewing such content. He says the firewall being used by Tata Communications and nearly all other ISPs has an inbuilt software limitation: it does not allow the display of a file in excess of 32 kb.
As Abhimanyu Chopra, Delhi-based cyber and IPR advocate and contributor to the website Legally India, told us, the statement is a mere rectification of the incorrect message earlier displayed by ISPs.
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It has now said that the following message should be displayed, and has dismissed the objections raised by Tata Telecommunications that longer message can’t be displayed because of file size limits.
