Indian Film Company Gets Court Order To Block File Sharing Websites

Most Internet users in India have been without the use of file-sharing websites since yesterday. Airtel, MTNL, and BSNL broadband users here have been affected by this move, caused by a Delhi High Court order to preemptively stop the piracy of brand-new Bollywood movie Singham.

Reliance Big Pictures’ Singham is to be released in theatres across the country later today. To prevent piracy of the movie through online as well as offline mediums, Reliance Big Pictures got a John Doe order from the Delhi High Court which will prevent anyone (from would-be file-sharers to DVD sellers) from infringing on the intellectual rights of the copyright owner. A John Doe order does not specify any one in particular. It is meant for everyone who would infringe the copyrights of a product.

The sites which have been blocked are the popular direct-download file-sharing sites Megaupload, Megavideo, VideoBB, Novamov, Movshare, Rapidshare, Putlocker, Hotfile, Fileserve, Filesonic, Depositfiles and WUpload. Although copyrighted material is often transferred using these services, the sites are often used by many Indians for legitimate file-sharing. People came to know of it yesterday when an error message was displayed for Airtel, BSNL, and MTNL users upon opening the above sites, which read:

This site has been blocked as per Instruction from Department of Telecommunications (DOT).

The topic is being discussed widely on Twitter with the hashtag #IndiaBlocks and first came to our attention when a thread regarding the issue popped up on the India Broadband Forum.

How far is too far when protecting copyright?

In India, as soon as a movie, a music album or a PC game is released, piracy peddlars try gaining immediate access to it. You can always find pirated copies of new movies or albums on any of the file-sharing websites, and quite easily in any of the DVD rental shops in India.

Taking this into consideration, Reliance Big Pictures is within its rights to try to protect its investment. The making of a movie involves a huge budget, and anti-piracy advocates say that huge losses are incurred when the movie’s pirated copies start circulating. Would you want that to happen if your own money was involved in the project?

As you might expect, there has been a lot of public reaction online to this blocking of the file-sharing sites. In a way, it has helped the movie Singham get more attention. But some people are talking about boycotting the film in protest.

But it’s possible that this could also be a case of there being ‘no such thing as bad press.’ Might this controversy result in the movie doing better at the box office as a result of increased public awareness?

What about the rights of Indian internet users?

As far as legitimate file-sharing is concerned, any internet user has the full right to access any file-sharing websites. In this case, the court has not actually specified that it wants the ISPs to block all file-sharing sites. The ISPs have done it sensing that it will be better to avoid any trouble in the future. The big question in front of us is: