The Index highlights a positive development in India’s copyright landscape over the past decade, amidst an otherwise challenging environment. Rightsholders have increasingly been successful in defending and enforcing their copyrights through injunctive relief. Since 2019, Indian courts have introduced “dynamic” injunctions to address issues such as mirror sites and reactivation of disabled infringing content through different online access points. This positive trend continued in 2023, with significant judicial actions.
In January, the Delhi High Court ordered the blocking of “stream-ripping” websites, marking the first such order in India targeting this type of infringement. Subsequently, in August, the Court issued a dynamic injunction against audiovisual content infringement, including future creations and copyrighted works, marking another first in India. This judicial approach of injunctive-style relief now provides rightsholders with an effective means of combating copyright infringement in India.
Legal measures granting exclusive rights to prevent copyright infringement, including provisions concerning web hosting, streaming and linking, are crucial. As noted in the previous year’s Index, film and audiovisual content piracy posed significant challenges for both domestic and international rightsholders in India. In response, the Indian government introduced the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill in 2019, which was enacted into law in 2023. This Bill includes new language and criminal sanctions targeting film piracy, with potential imprisonment of up to 3 years and fines of up to 5% of the production costs of the infringed motion picture.
Source: Barandbench
