The Indian government has issued a notice to messaging platform Telegram, asking it to take action within 15 days on the “large-scale dissemination of pirated movies, OTT content and other audio-visual materials.”
Telegram has been asked to strengthen its detection and reporting systems, disable access to and remove pirated movies and infringing audio-visual content, according to a Ministry of I&B notification issued on Saturday.
The action has been taken to protect the economy of India’s creatives, film industry, broadcasters, OTT platforms, producers and distributors.
Telegram was also directed to act against what the I&B Department described as repeat infringers, including channels, groups, bots, accounts, administrators and associated entities.
The popular messaging app has been asked to provide details of its grievance redressal system to producers, OTT platforms and law enforcement agencies, with a deadline of 15 days to submit an action taken report on the steps taken to prevent, detect and remove pirated content from the platform.
Strict message
This call signals a clear shift from phase-out to holding the platform accountable. The government had earlier taken action against more than 3,000 channels on Telegram app carrying pirated content.
The I&B Ministry’s notification reminded Telegram that it, as an intermediary, has to observe due diligence under the IT Act and IT Rules.
The ministry clarified that Telegram cannot wait for the government to identify each hacking channel one by one, according to the notice.
“A purely reactive per-channel takedown approach may not be sufficient to demonstrate due diligence by the platform as required under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology Rules, 2021.”
The Ministry of I&B has maintained that copyright infringement is not just a civil violation, but a criminal offense in India under the Copyright Act, 1957 and the Cinematography Act, 1952.
Telegram was recently banned in India until June 22 – a ban that was seen as an attempt to prevent any possible irregularities ahead of the re-examination of NEET-UG on June 21, which was originally held on May 3 but was canceled on May 12 after overlaps emerged between the leaked guess sheet and the actual one, leading to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) launching a probe and arresting 13 people.
NEET (UG) is the national entrance examination conducted by NTA for admission into undergraduate medical programmes.
The government’s ban on Telegram, which is widely used by students to share study materials, later reached the Delhi High Court, which on June 19 upheld the government’s decision to ban Telegram for six days before the NEET-UG re-examination.
