Contrary to a recent warning that had been issued on blocked Indian websites, it has now been discovered that visiting government-blocked torrent websites won’t lead to a jail term or hefty fine.
Several reports pointed out that there are several ambiguities in the notice which said that a user might spend three years in jail and pay Rs three lakhs as fine, if found visiting blocked torrent websites.
Currently, the scary message on blocked torrent sites read: “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 the nodal officer 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.”
However, it should be noted that the notice does not give clarity on any particular law and seems like a petty warning to scare off potential visitors. In a layman’s term, it is an amalgamation of various inapplicable laws have been merged together. But the message, due to its ambiguity, looks threatening rather than being informative.
The notice said that merely viewing a blocked torrent website or URL could land users in trouble. Though the warning message aims to curb piracy-mongers, cracking down on users for just viewing a torrent site does not make any sense. It’s impossible to prosecute users who mistakenly land up on a blocked website. Most importantly, this part of the notice does not even violate the Indian Copyright Act
Some of the other points that are mentioned in the notice zealously stated that viewing, downloading, exhibiting or duplicating an illicit copy of the contents under this URL is punishable as an offence under the laws of India. However, the sections under which a user would be panelised including section 63, 63-A, 65 and 65-A of the Copyright Act, 1957 have little nexus with how torrent websites work. The notice also fails to give any clear reason to how these sections might apply.
This notice looks more like an attempt to stop users from opening these blocked sites but fails to explain the root cause properly. If the government is looking to curb piracy, it should start more awareness programmes and educate online users rather than sending out spurious notices.
