The Government on Saturday issued a notice to the messaging platform Telegram over widespread piracy. In its notice, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting sought an Action Taken Report from Telegram within 15 days, with officials underlining that the government’s approach marks a shift from piecemeal takedowns of pirated content to “platform accountability”.
The ministry is learnt to have told Telegram, which was temporarily blocked in India in June as a precautionary measure to prevent any paper leak during the NEET re-examination, that copyright infringement is not merely a civil violation, but also a criminal offence under the Copyright Act, 1957, and the Cinematograph Act, 1952.
“The Ministry has made it clear that Telegram cannot merely wait for the government to identify each piracy channel one by one. A purely reactive, channel-by-channel takedown approach may not be enough to demonstrate due diligence by the platform, as required under the IT Act, 2000, and the IT Rules, 2021,” officials said, news agency PTI reported.
Over the past months, Telegram has come under the regulatory lens in India with rising concerns related to fraud, impersonation and circulation of sensitive content. The Indian government had imposed a week-long ban on Telegram and its associated web services until June 22, citing the platform’s failure to curb the circulation of leaked and fake National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) examination papers, misleading content and other fraudulent activities linked to the country’s medical entrance examination process.
The instant messaging platform, however, returned to service in India after the government ban expired.
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Sumaila Zaman is a Senior Sub Editor at India.com, where she covers key developments and trending events across education, world affairs, business, and current news. At India.com, she specializes in b … Read More
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