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November 08, 2007
YouTube Sued by Super Cassette Industries
By Raju Shanbhag TMCnet Contributing Editor
The fight against Google (News - Alert) by the content owners has reached India with Super Cassettes Industries, one of the premium entertainment content owners in the country, alleging that YouTube (News - Alert) has been illegally displaying some content for which the company holds the copyright.
The company is seeking a permanent injunction and damages on the dissemination and display on YouTube of the content and on Monday obtained an interim restraint order in the High Court in Delhi. This means that Google, which was not represented in the hearing, will have to remove the content until it receives further orders.
Unlike in the west, the Super Cassette Industries may just get the decision in its favor because India's Information Technology Act 2000 makes intermediaries like ISPs (Internet service providers), Web site hosting companies, search engines, e-mail services, and social networks, liable for their users' content. According to section 79 of the Act, network service providers will be held guilty unless they can prove that the offense or contravention was committed without their knowledge or that they had exercised all due diligence to prevent the commission of such offense or contravention.
Although Super Cassette Industries thinks that YouTube is liable for the wrongful display of its content, YouTube obviously has other ideas. According to a report in InfoWorld Daily, Rishi Jaitly, a policy analyst at Google India said in a Google blog in October, “We don't hold the telephone company liable when two callers use the phone lines to plan a crime. For the same reasons, it's a fundamental principle of the Internet that you don't blame the neutral intermediaries for the actions of their customers.”
But the report also quotes Amit Sibal, lawyer for Super Cassettes who says YouTube is not an intermediary. The company owns and controls a web site and it’s not an ISP. This means that company participates in the infringement, and derives profit from the advertisements that are displayed against the infringed materials.
This is not the first time a Google owned web site is getting into trouble in India. Earlier, Orkut, the Google owned Social Networking web site, came in for trouble when it allegedly hosted content which spread hatred against Shivaji, an Indian king and India.
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Raju Shanbhag is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
The company is seeking a permanent injunction and damages on the dissemination and display on YouTube of the content and on Monday obtained an interim restraint order in the High Court in Delhi. This means that Google, which was not represented in the hearing, will have to remove the content until it receives further orders.
Unlike in the west, the Super Cassette Industries may just get the decision in its favor because India's Information Technology Act 2000 makes intermediaries like ISPs (Internet service providers), Web site hosting companies, search engines, e-mail services, and social networks, liable for their users' content. According to section 79 of the Act, network service providers will be held guilty unless they can prove that the offense or contravention was committed without their knowledge or that they had exercised all due diligence to prevent the commission of such offense or contravention.
Although Super Cassette Industries thinks that YouTube is liable for the wrongful display of its content, YouTube obviously has other ideas. According to a report in InfoWorld Daily, Rishi Jaitly, a policy analyst at Google India said in a Google blog in October, “We don't hold the telephone company liable when two callers use the phone lines to plan a crime. For the same reasons, it's a fundamental principle of the Internet that you don't blame the neutral intermediaries for the actions of their customers.”
But the report also quotes Amit Sibal, lawyer for Super Cassettes who says YouTube is not an intermediary. The company owns and controls a web site and it’s not an ISP. This means that company participates in the infringement, and derives profit from the advertisements that are displayed against the infringed materials.
This is not the first time a Google owned web site is getting into trouble in India. Earlier, Orkut, the Google owned Social Networking web site, came in for trouble when it allegedly hosted content which spread hatred against Shivaji, an Indian king and India.
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Raju Shanbhag is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
