You may get 3 yrs in jail, Rs 3 lakhs fine for downloading copyrighted content

Call it the new Digital India. The Indian government, with the help of internet service providers, and presumably under directives of court, has banned thousands of websites and URLs in the last five odd years. But until now if you somehow visited these "blocked URLs" all was fine. However, now if you try to visit such URLs and view the information, you may get three-year jail sentence as well as invite a fine of Rs 3 lakh.

This is just for viewing a torrent file, or downloading a file from a host that may have been banned in India, or even for viewing an image on a file host like Imagebam. You don't have to download a torrent file, and then the actual videos or other files, which might have copyright. Just accessing information under a blocked URL will land you in jail and leave your bank account poorer by Rs 3 lakh.

Also Read: It's over! Torrentz, world's top torrent search engine, shuts down

If you visit such a URL, you will be shown the following warning.
"This URL has been blocked under the instructions of the Competent Government Authority or in compliance with the orders of a Court of competent jurisdiction. Viewing, downloading, exhibiting or duplicating an illicit copy of the contents under this URL is punishable as an offence under the laws of India, including but not limited to under Sections 63, 63-A, 65 and 65-A of the Copyright Act, 1957 which prescribe imprisonment for 3 years and also fine of upto Rs. 3,00,000/-. Any person aggrieved by any such blocking of this URL may contact at urlblock@tatacommunications.com who will, within 48 hours, provide you the details of relevant proceedings under which you can approach the relevant High Court or Authority for redressal of your grievance"

This is a change compared to the earlier message that users would encounter on the blocked URLs in India. The earlier message would read that the URL has been blocked at the direction of DoT. Of late, however, the government bodies were not only experimenting in how to implement the blocks but were also trying to figure what message to show to users. Recently, the blocked URLs also gave out not reachable error without specifying any message.

n India, most of the URLs and websites were blocked using DNS-filtering. This means the DNS of the blocked site was added to a list maintained by the internet service provider and whenever a user tried connecting to that site, the DNS server of the internet service provider would block that request. However, this was easy to bypass as a lot of people started using - or were already using - third-party DNS services such as those maintained by Google. It is also ineffective if a site uses HTTPS or in other words encryption to secure the network between the user's computer and the site server.

But in the last couple of years internet service providers, probably at the request of government bodies, have invested lot more in bolstering the mechanism through which they block websites. Indian government bodies too, instead of relying on internet service providers that are many, has started bring into play the big companies like Tata Communications and Airtel that manage a number of internet gateways in India.

The latest warning message clearly implies that the URL blocking is now happening at the internet gateways - in this particular case for the example the gateway is seemingly managed by Tata Communications - and that is more difficult to circumvent. The connection on which this message was served is from MTNL. But the message came from Tata Communications. We sent an email to Tata Communications at the specified address to get more information but it bounced back (see above).

While the message in itself is ominous and surely must have been vetted by a government body, it is not clear how it will be enforced. It doesn't look possible that the government will be monitoring the whole world wide web, looking for people may access or try to access a blocked URL. It is also not clear how, if someone does land in trouble for accessing a blocked URL in India, will be prosecuted and what process will be followed.

Lack of clarity on it as well as no prior information on something like this, which may make, almost every web user in India a criminal, does indicate that this is just a message and not any sort of official government policy, which is going to be enforced. However, at the same, it is also clear that the mere presence of this message to web users mean that they may end up in trouble if a government body or cops do decided to follow through on anything that they believe is an "offence under the laws of India, including but not limited to under Sections 63, 63-A, 65 and 65-A of the Copyright Act, 1957".

Blame it on John Doe
The problem, for now, doesn't seem to that India is moving to block half of the internet through a policy the way China does. Instead, the issue is likely due to the John Doe orders that Indian courts are issuing at the regular interval at the request of content creators like Bollywood film makers. The lawyers of film studios often approach courts ahead of a movie's release seeking preventive blocks on the URLs they compile in the list.

In reality these lists are poorly compiled and often block is sought on full websites just on the basis of whims and fancies. However, courts have regularly issued orders in the favour of film studios in India. These court orders are issued against John Doe or in other words an unnamed entity that may indulge in piracy of the film.

Once this order is issued, the copies of the order along with the list of URLs to be blocked go to DoT, which them passes an order to internet service providers to block these sites. The interesting bit here is that once a URL is blocked it remains blocked, even years after the release of the film.

Source
 
Too much power in govt's hands. This can be easily abused by few vested people or organizations for their benefit.
 
Is it practical? I am sure thousands or millions of people will visit blocked url daily without caring any govt notice. Most of people have no idea who is DOT. Even people do not know that downloading movies, songs from 3rd party sites is illegal.
 
Too much power in govt's hands. This can be easily abused by few vested people or organizations for their benefit.

This is not the Govt. or DOT but the courts and yes courts do have a lot of power. Rights holder go to courts and the courts give the judgement which is then passed on to DOT to enforce the bans as mentioned in this paragraph:

Blame it on John Doe
The problem, for now, doesn't seem to that India is moving to block half of the internet through a policy the way China does. Instead, the issue is likely due to the John Doe orders that Indian courts are issuing at the regular interval at the request of content creators like Bollywood film makers. The lawyers of film studios often approach courts ahead of a movie's release seeking preventive blocks on the URLs they compile in the list.

In reality these lists are poorly compiled and often block is sought on full websites just on the basis of whims and fancies. However, courts have regularly issued orders in the favour of film studios in India. These court orders are issued against John Doe or in other words an unnamed entity that may indulge in piracy of the film.

Once this order is issued, the copies of the order along with the list of URLs to be blocked go to DoT, which them passes an order to internet service providers to block these sites. The interesting bit here is that once a URL is blocked it remains blocked, even years after the release of the film.
 
Is this for real? :eek:

I haven't come across this news anywhere on the internet or in the newspapers.

Today itself, I just came across a DOT warning on Avidemux website, which in itself is strange. What problems can they have with Avidemux software?

The DOT warning was same as usual, and nothing of the sort described in the article.
 
I understand copyright and piracy, but this simply ridiculous.

PS- why is this coming out on a sunday ? are courts open on sundays now ?
 
This could mean that if Linux is hosted in these blocked websites and you download it from some other website, then you could get arrested because you are downloading content that was hosted in blocked website.
 
Some vested interest is trying to scare people through Tata. There is no law that says you'll get arrested if you visit piracy sites, just do not download any content.. not even torrent file. VPN FTW!

Indiatoday article is non sense if you'd ask me.
 
Some vested interest is trying to scare people through Tata. There is no law that says you'll get arrested if you visit piracy sites, just do not download any content.. not even torrent file. VPN FTW!

Indiatoday article is non sense if you'd ask me.
what if we use magnetlinks ?
 
Wow.. this is really ridiculous.

Guys who are using VPN... do you use a paid VPN? Because, from whatever little I have read, free VPN services do not allow downloading torrents.
 
Total BS. Tata just woke up to the fact some days earlier that there are videos in Youtube which allow you to bypass the DRM on STBs - this is an old thing, as there are ways to bypass DRM. To which the court obliged that Youtube must allow removal of such videos.

I think it is an exercise in futulity - Now, more people would be interested in learning how to hack their STBs to get free TV, which if you went to the proper sites - allow them to do it. Streisand Effect.
 
MODERATOR WARNING:

Please refrain from posting tracker screenshots to augment your argument and/or the URL. Also please avoid posting specific circumvention methods .
 
Sigh this is how the government plans to reduce our desire for high speed internet :p

But this is just silly, accessing the site should not have to cause the jail term.

VPN zindabad it is then. Now need a good cheap VPN for torrents.
 
Probably the guy who put up this blockage scheme and specially the blocking page with the warning doesn't know what it means! They are actually trying to threaten probably 50% of the internet users! And so it seems, nearly all the jails will get filled in quickly! :tearsofjoy: Jail Bharo Andolan!
 
Back
Top