Tag: ITact

-Report by Prerna Gaur

The honorable High Court of Delhi held in the case of STAR INDIA PVT. LTD. & ANR. versus AAPKEAAJANESE.NET & ORS “rogue websites” that rogue websites were guilty of copyright infringement under Section 51 of the Act and were not entitled to exemptions under 52 (1)(c) of the Act or Section 79 of Information Technology Act, 2000.

FACTS

There is a contention on the behalf of the plaintiff that the defendants are stealing their original content and making it available on their websites which are prohibited under the Copyright Act of 1976 as well as the IT Act. Therefore, the plaintiff is praying for a permanent injunction as well as claiming damages of Rs 2,00,01,000/-. Plaintiff no 1. is a leading entertainment and media Company in India. It is the owner of various television channels and with due permission from Ministry and Broadcasting has exclusive rights to broadcast 64 channels in 8 languages. Plaintiff no.2 is the wholly owned subsidiary of Plaintiff no.1 and is the owner of the digital platform HOTSTAR.

PLAINTIFF’S CONTENTION

These websites are infringing the copyrights of Star India Limited. Plaintiff had asked the honorable court to put down the content from the website and the plaintiff also asked for compensation for the same. It was alleged by the plaintiff that there was illegal and unauthorized distribution, broadcasting, rebroadcasting, transmission and streaming of the plaintiff’s original content by the rogue websites. There were no traceable details of either the registrant or the user of the website. Although legal notices were sent to the defendants, however, there was no response by the defendants. The defendants have not filed any written statements.

Court’s Judgements

The court held that the concerned websites were guilty of copyright infringement under Section 51 of the Act and were not entitled to exemptions under 52 (1)(c) of the Act or Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000. As far as “rogue websites” are concerned, the Court identified the following illustrative factors to be considered in determining whether a particular website falls within that class. It was observed

“b. The details of the registrants of each of the websites are masked and no personal or traceable details are available either of the registrant or the user.
c. Despite receipt of legal notices, the Defendants nos. 1 to 67 have not complied with the requests to take down the infringing content.
d. The Defendants nos. 1 to 67 contain directories or indexes to facilitate infringement of copyright.
e. The copyrighted content is available illegally on the websites of the Defendant nos. 1 to 67 and the same is evidenced by the screenshots placed at pages 297 to 1364 of Volume II-VII of the documents filed by the plaintiffs along with the Plaint.”

In light of the above observations, the court held that the plaintiffs are entitled to the relief claimed.

-Report by Nistha Tiwari

In the case of Aman Kumar Bharadwaj v. state of Himachal Pradesh and Ors. the High Court of Himachal Pradesh quashed the criminal case filed against a journalist who was checking the system of generating e-pass during COVID-19.

The Zee Media House Journalist Abhishek Kumar Bharadwaj was booked under sections 419 (cheating by personation), 468(forgery for purpose of cheating ), and 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record ) of the Indian Penal Code. He was also booed under section 66(D) of the information and technology Act, 2000 and section 54 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

The state of Himachal Pradesh, on 25th April 2021, issued certain directions regarding the inter-state movement to Himanchal Pradesh. This was to be monitored through the process of registration of an e-pass on the e-pass web portal. On having doubts about the increased movement in the state even after strict restrictions, the petitioner being a responsible journalist decided to investigate and check the system of generating e-passes. The petitioner filled out two online registration forms for the issuance of two e-passes for entering the state of Himachal Pradesh without mentioning any valid reason. These two e – passes were registered in the names of two renowned personalities
i.e., Amitabh Bachchan and Donald Trump. He uploaded random vehicle details and his own Aadhar card details while doing so. Even after filling incorrect details, the passes were issued to him which assured him that the details are not being verified and the authorities are issuing passes in a mechanical manner.

The investigation was carried out by him with the permission of the Bureau Chief. Upon completion of the investigation, the journalist brought it to the notice of the senior authorities of the state including a cabinet minister and Director General of Police of Himachal Pradesh. However, he received no response and telecasted it on the news channel.

An FIR was registered against Aman Bharadwaj by the state as he used fake registration numbers of vehicles by mentioning his own mobile number and Aadhar card number as Identity proof for generating fake and forged documents. It was also alleged he caused the spread of false propaganda about the state allowing the entry of anyone and everyone in the state, as the state had put barriers and was checking the entry of each car.

The court observed the ingredients of the offenses under which the FIR was filed and came to the conclusion that the acts of Aman Bhardwaj do not fall within the definition of the alleged offenses.

“…Petitioner was having doubt about proper working of verification system of State at the time of registration of online request for e-pass and generation of e-passes. He was not having any other via-media to check and verify the system except submitting a misleading request. It is evident that in entire episode intention of petitioner was neither dishonest nor fraudulent as immediately after generation of epasses, which otherwise could not have been used by any person,
petitioner brought it to the notice of concerned authorities and persons…”

Aman Bharadwaj was neither fraudulent nor dishonest as after the issuance of e-passes based on the fake documents, he brought it to the concerned authorities. He never intended to use those passes for entering Himachal Pradesh. There is no sufficient material for registration of the offenses and a prima facie case cannot be made against the petitioner. In light of the above, the petition was allowed and the FIR was quashed.

–Report by Avinash Pandey

The Information Technology Act and The Information Technology Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, 2021 allow the Indian Government to take down certain online activities that they seem might be against National Security or against the general public. The Indian government had already issued numerous warnings to Twitter about the tweets and Twitter accounts that were spreading hatred and to be terminated immediately. Even though twitter had moved its regulation and ability for people to tweet about certain controversial things but the Government had been questioning and making Twitter delete tweets some of which were not even racial or against national security.

Twitter was also challenged in May 2021 when it categorized the tweet of a BJP representative as manipulative in nature, even though Twitter has been under fire for most of the last year. However, they are not the only company that had to change to continue the business in India, WhatsApp with over 540 Million active users in India was also directed to change their existing policies which they later challenged by saying that if they work according to the regulations of the government the data of the users will be easily traceable against the existing laws.

Twitter took to the Karnataka High Court challenging the claims by the Indian Government and the threats that the Government had passed against the chief compliance officer that an arrest warrant will be released against him if Twitter does not comply with the regulations of the Act. Speaking about the topic the Junior Minister of Information Technology said that everyone has the right to go to court and everyone can enjoy Judicial review but it is important to note that the contention is unambiguous to the Indian Legal System. The government wanted Twitter to set up an Indian representative as grievance management for the removal of certain tweets and this was challenged by Twitter saying that it might create bias.

This demand by the government arose because of a video not taken down by Twitter showing communal violence. The situation between the Indian Government and Twitter has been hostile as the newly introduced laws are making Twitter and other social media applications hold on to users’ personal information. Twitter was requested to remove all the posts criticizing the farmers’ bill and any post relating to the farmer’s protest which they had duly done but it sparked a lot of criticism stating that the government is using social media platforms to shut down the voices.

Twitter in the transparency report that they had filed with the suit in the Karnataka High Court displayed that from January 2021 to June 2021 India had been ranked amongst the top 5 countries that had demanded the removal of criticizing tweets. There were 5000 legal demands from countries including Japan, Russia, Turkey, South Korea and India out of which 12% came from India itself. A Twitter spokesperson recently stated that the removal of tweets and
other controversial topics are done in private so the general public does not have a say in this but the people who knew about the issue had already given out their opinion on Twitter itself by stating that the removal of criticism for government policies will impact the free expression for the people online.

The experts have highly criticized the number of legal documents for censorship that the Indian government had to send and they have also stated that the current government is trying to silence the criticism that they get on social media even though the political party in power has refrained and denied all the claims against them. It can be clearly seen from all the documents submitted that only the tweets criticizing the government are being removed. Even though Twitter stated that the laws that are made by the government will infringe the right to freedom of speech and expression of the general public. Not taking any of this into consideration, the central government basically stated that the company should take accountability rather than challenging the Indian technology act and should work on how
the laws have advised them to. Specifically speaking about the current issue they further said that we had given numerous chances for Twitter to reflect upon their steps but almost every time they have fallen short of it.