New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has ruled that copyright infringers active on the messaging app Telegram cannot escape law merely because the company's physical server is in Singapore. A bench of Justice Pratibha Singh, while hearing a plea over alleged copyright infringement on the platform, said that no person or organisation can use privacy and freedom of expression to avoid the consequences of their illegal acts.
The court directed the main respondent Telegram to give full details of the channels and devices that have been used to wrongly upload and broadcast copyright material. It also includes mobile numbers, IP addresses and e mail addresses of such channels. The petition was filed by Neetu Singh, who runs a coaching centre for competitive examinations.
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Singh alleged that the miscreants are illegally disseminating coaching videos, lectures, books etc, which has been sought to be stopped and the damage caused by it has been demanded. The petition alleges that her work is being broadcast through the Telegram app in an unauthorised manner. During the hearing, Telegram said that it cannot disclose this information because doing so would violate the privacy policy and jurisdiction of the country where its server is located.
To this, the High Court said that merely because Telegram's server is located in Singapore, the petitioner cannot be denied the right to take action against the original violators. The court said that if Telegram's arguments are accepted, then the violation of the IT Act will become unbridled as most of the information is being disseminated through such messaging apps. The rights derived from the copyright law should be understood to harmonise with the provisions of the IT Act, the court said.
