Sohini Chatterjee
WhatsApp and Telegram have been restrained by The Delhi High Court for circulating paper of The Times of India and its sister publication Navbharat Times, illegally on their platform.
The court issued two notices as well as to certain individuals who are the administrators of certain groups which barred them from illegally circulating the e-papers for alleged copyright violations.
Justice Jayant Nath granted an ad-interim injunction in favor of the plaintiff, Bennett, Coleman and Company Ltd., saying that it was “prima facie” violative of the copyright of the e-papers of the Plaintiff to be circulated on the Defendant’s platform.
The High Court said that, circulation of e-papers violate copyright.
The matter got listed for further hearing on August 18.
Notice was also issued to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to give its response on the suit.
The BCCL’s plea contented that there was an unauthorized circulation of the e- papers of The Times of India and Navbharat Times on various Telegram and WhatsApp groups. That amounts to the infringement of its copyright.
“That despite the various measures taken by the Plaintiff to protect its proprietary site content, it has been recently observed that under the garb of providing online services, various web portals, mobile applications, intermediaries, social media platforms and their users are misusing and perpetuating the misuse of the e-newspapers and e-magazines of the Plaintiff…,” it added.
The reason for the cause of action given by the Plaintiff was that despite being given various cease and desist notices, no action was taken by the offending websites.
