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India Threatens 3-Year Jail Sentences For Viewing Blocked Torrents (intoday.in)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the angry-in-India dept.

"It is official now. The punishment for rape is actually less..." writes an anonymous Slashdot reader, who adds that "Some users think that this is all the fault of Bollywood/Hollywood movie studios. They are abusing power, court and money..." India Today reports: The Indian government, with the help of internet service providers, and presumably under directives of court, has banned thousands of websites and URLs in the last five odd years. But until now if you somehow visited these "blocked URLs" all was fine. However, now if you try to visit such URLs and view the information, you may get a three-year jail sentence as well as invite a fine...

This is just for viewing a torrent file, or downloading a file from a host that may have been banned in India, or even for viewing an image on a file host like Imagebam. You don't have to download a torrent file, and then the actual videos or other files, which might have copyright. Just accessing information under a blocked URL will land you in jail and leave your bank account poorer.
While it's not clear how this will be enforced, visiting a blocked URL in India now leads to a warning 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, 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 up to Rs. 3,00,000..."

48 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Technical solution by OpenSourced · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Better use emule to share, with Kad network if all emule servers are down. You don't have URLs to block there.

    I know that the issue here is the outrageous punishment of the law, but the situation here is asymmetrical in that the content creators have all the financial incentive to fight legally, and the content sharers very little of it. However, the asymmetry is reversed on the technical side, so that's where you can play your cards.

    --
    Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
    1. Re: Technical solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I get your point, but please don't say "content creators." Most (the majority as a whole), not all, content creators (actual artists) receive very little. It's the recording/license studios and the Evil MegaCorps that are getting all the money contributing to this insanity.

    2. Re: Technical solution by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 1

      Yeah. The ogolipoly that is the media business just means more bias, more idiocy, poorer quality media and so on. So smash them up, Viacom, Time-Warner, Disney, and so on.

    3. Re:Technical solution by antdude · · Score: 1

      People still use eMule?

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    4. Re:Technical solution by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      People still use eMule?

      Sure. People have tried going organic, but emules are better, cheaper, faster and cleaner than regular mules.

      [ Also, the youngsters love things that have an "e" or "i" in front of the name. ]

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    5. Re:Technical solution by Calydor · · Score: 2

      The ed2k protocol had several advantages over torrents, one of the larger being that you could search the network itself for rarer files (single mp3 files or stuff like that) without having to have access to Pirate Bay etc.

      Hell, the network would even work if your ISP blocks all DNS lookups (and you don't use Google DNS, of course) to Pirate Bay.

      eDonkey and eMule may be pretty old protocols, but remember: Just because it's old doesn't mean it's bad, and just because it's new doesn't mean it's better.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  2. War on Access by Howitzer86 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ludicrous. I wonder who will have the honor of being the first country to exact the death penalty for file sharing.

    Accessing files by working around the state protected gate keeper? DEATH!
    Accessing streams rather than hunting down the tape in a bargain bin somewhere because you can't get it otherwise anymore? DEATH.
    Visiting sites otherwise banned by the government because it contains information they don't want you to know or share? DEATH.
    Running a site banned by accident? Byzantine appeals process... followed by DEATH.

    Imagine the pressure. Here's your first computer kiddo. Don't press this big red button though. If you do, they'll come and murder the whole family.

    1. Re:War on Access by tbuskey · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Ludicrous. I wonder who will have the honor of being the first country to exact the death penalty for file sharing.

      Accessing files by working around the state protected gate keeper? DEATH!

      Larry Niven wrote The Jigsaw Man about escalating penaties for crimes.

    2. Re:War on Access by diga33 · · Score: 4, Informative

      You know what they say: download a Michael Jackson song, get 10 years in jail, kill Michael Jackson get 4.

    3. Re:War on Access by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That was more as a warning about organ banks and any involuntary donation of body parts

    4. Re:War on Access by Howitzer86 · · Score: 1

      That's beautiful.

  3. Actual Theft by Howitzer86 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's probably less risky to steal an actual DVD at this point. Hell, target the guys at the market selling the bootlegs. They won't call the cops.

    1. Re:Actual Theft by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      It's probably less risky to steal an actual DVD at this point. Hell, target the guys at the market selling the bootlegs. They won't call the cops.

      Probably, that way only the actual store loses, the **IAA/hollywood/whoever have already been paid so they don't give a shit.

      --
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    2. Re:Actual Theft by mjwx · · Score: 1

      It's probably less risky to steal an actual DVD at this point. Hell, target the guys at the market selling the bootlegs. They won't call the cops.

      Actually they will.

      You see the guy selling bootleg DVD's is paying Officer Sandeep in order to keep doing business, if Officer Sandeep cant protect the people he collects protection money from then all off a sudden the bootleg DVD vendor stops paying.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  4. Might come in handy by John+Jorsett · · Score: 1

    If there are criminal penalties, then they must be publishing which are the prohibited URLs. Sounds like a good way to find any that you may have overlooked.

  5. I Am Not Understanding by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    How else am I supposed to watch my favorite Bollywood adventure? Please do the needful.

    1. Re:I Am Not Understanding by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You do realize that most Indians with an internet connection are either native English speakers, or at an almost native level of English? Sure, with a heavy Indian accent, but their written English is indistinguishable from native speakers in the US or UK. In fact, that's not exactly true, as they might actually do better on average.

    2. Re: I Am Not Understanding by orlanz · · Score: 2

      No, most or almost all are taught British English. And they end up with a upper middle class dialect.

      This is why Americans have so much trouble understanding them.

    3. Re: I Am Not Understanding by kamapuaa · · Score: 2

      English is an official, relatively widely spoken language in India. The Indian dialect is separate and distinct from British English, much the same way Australian English is its own thing.

      Furthermore, almost nobody would think Indian English sounds like Upper-Middle-Class UK, and people in the UK often find Indian accents distinct from their own, and perhaps even difficult to understand.

      --
      Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
    4. Re: I Am Not Understanding by unixisc · · Score: 1

      True, but the conventions that Indian English follows - in terms of spellings, grammatical rules, etc ('zed' instead of 'zee') are directly derived from British English. But very different from US English. Yeah, every country speaks English differently, but it's usually obvious whether they're following anybody, and who that might be. Like Canadians trying to be more British then American so that people don't irritate them further by mistaking them for Americans.

    5. Re:I Am Not Understanding by Cederic · · Score: 1

      You do realise that this is very much not the case?

      Yes, their vocabulary tends to be excellent but their grammar definitely follows different rules. It's particularly noticeable in written form.

    6. Re: I Am Not Understanding by orlanz · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't call them "dialects". Closer to local accents. And there are 2 versions in India. One where the native speaker speaks Hindi and the other where they speak something that is closer to Sanskrit (equivalent for India as Latin to Western Europe) in Grammer and enunciation.

      And the Indian English accent is different from the versions in the UK (more formal and broken). But there are more differences in the 4-5 major accents of the US than India vs UK. Canada, South Africa, Australia, etc are different too but very very close to UK in comparison to US.

      But we don't call all the accents in the US their own dialects. Even thou I can't understand a word in one and it takes me a minute to figure out another. And I have folks down south that can't make heads or tail of another two. The closest English to US English outside the US seems to be Japan, and Mexico.

      And there are quite a lot of differences in the UK English. What's spoken in Grammar school and office space is quite different from the pubs. That's before ordering the round. I find that the average Joe in UK has the best accent. Not too formal not too drawn out not too much cursing not too unemotional. India has an equivalent to upper middle class. Too formal, too little emotion/expression, and too close to what is on paper. But not as much as news reporters or old families.

  6. I got three years in prison from an internet troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I was told I was going to see a funny cat video, but they linked me to Talledega Nights, now I'm in prison.

  7. Re:Because everyone on Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The next time "This is Windows Calling, Your computer have virus", I'll let them link to my computer which sends them to one of the URLs on the list.

  8. I really... by not_surt · · Score: 1

    like ellipses...
    far too...
    much.

  9. Beyond stupid. by kheldan · · Score: 1

    So they're going to throw some underage kid in jail for 3 years? Or are they going to throw his parents in jail for 3 years, then fine them a bunch of money they likely don't have? So, in other words, the Indian government is now in the business of destroying someones' life before it even gets started, or destroying entire families, over some goddamn picture on some goddamn website they decided to block for some stupid reason? Why stop there? Why not just make the Ultimate example out of these 'criminals' and execute them? Would actually be less cruel to kill some kid who downloaded something than to destroy him by putting him in prison for 3 years. In fact just round up and kill the entire family of a downloader, that'll teach people not to pirate digital media, right? Be sure to publicly execute them so the message gets rammed home. I'm sure that'll make your media industry buddies real happy with you, protecting their pictures and movies by killing people.

    ***FACEPALM***

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    1. Re:Beyond stupid. by BringsApples · · Score: 1

      No no, you see it's 3 years Indian time. That's only like 2-1/2 months in American time.

      --
      Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
    2. Re:Beyond stupid. by kheldan · · Score: 1

      I really don't get the joke.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    3. Re:Beyond stupid. by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      and when the kid is in the join they learn that they can get less time for just shopfitting the movies?

    4. Re:Beyond stupid. by kheldan · · Score: 1

      O_o

      Please accept my virtual, unofficial mod-up to (+5, Insightful) for demonstrating that you're smarter and wiser than however many politicians in India.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  10. visiting a blocked URL? by Yurka · · Score: 1

    How does that work? The same way as in Russia, where the providers are obligated to be a MITM (and replace a certificate if it's HTTPS)? Isn't that more of an outrage, then, than what they choose to block or what penalties they put in place?

    --
    I can assure you, the best way to get rid of dragons is to have one of your own.
    1. Re:visiting a blocked URL? by Thor+Ablestar · · Score: 1

      I live in Russia, and there is no forced MITM with replaced certs. The official replaced certs that I have read about were: 1) in Kazakhstan, 2) In Australia where they were limited to some school system (which is understandable due to minors protection laws). The SORM (Read: PRISM) is totally passive and is prevented by law from any modification of traffic. The laws that punish the circumvention of filters are in project only.

  11. Seems they've normalized it with actual theft by Solandri · · Score: 2

    I was gonna post a snarky reply agreeing with you. But upon researching it, they've just normalized the penalty to be the same as if you stole an actual DVD. Their penalty for theft is a fine and up to three years jail time. Unlike the U.S. where you have to steal a certain amount of property value before you can face jail time, India seems to have no such threshold.

    1. Re:Seems they've normalized it with actual theft by Howitzer86 · · Score: 1

      Good for you for doing the actual research. I was wondering about it but was 1) too lazy to look it up, and 2) eager to score some easy internet points.

  12. Alarmism by jma05 · · Score: 4, Informative

    All this is pointless hyperventilating by people who understand little about India.
    India is one the LEAST punitive countries in the world. It does not believe that putting people in the prison is a solution for anything – even for things most of us would agree that people should be put into prison for.
    India’s incarceration rate is 33 (one of the lowest in the world) per 100,000
    US incarceration rate is 698 (highest incarceration rate in the world, if you ignore Seychelles) per 100,000
    Have you ever heard of anyone put in prison in India for downloading a file? The law has been around since 1957. I am not even sure if for-profit bootleggers who sell media in India have been in prison for more than a few weeks. This is just some tech-ignorant government bureaucrat getting carried away. If a 0.01% of Indians tweet about it, the warning will be edited to something realistic. This has been the pattern about most India alarmist articles on Slashdot.

    1. Re:Alarmism by Thor+Ablestar · · Score: 1

      I have read some years ago in jpost . com about Israeli woman that was in Indian prison. It looks that Indians specially make their prisons terrible. It both saves money and make the prison terms more terrible so they may be proportionally shorter.

    2. Re:Alarmism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      All this is pointless hyperventilating by people who understand little about India.
      India is one the LEAST punitive countries in the world. It does not believe that putting people in the prison is a solution for anything – even for things most of us would agree that people should be put into prison for.
      India’s incarceration rate is 33 (one of the lowest in the world) per 100,000

      Selectively applied laws with ridiculous penalties are a tool for corruption and extortion. You can see this in the U.S. where many defendants, particularly poor ones, get their verdict dictated by the prosecutor rather than the judge with a "plea deal" (you just take what I am handing you independently of what you may or may not have done, or I'll throw so much at you that, baseless or not, more will get to stick than if you just bend over right away), making a mockery of due process.

    3. Re:Alarmism by jma05 · · Score: 2

      You are entirely looking at India with US legal system lenses. In India, the political system is not dominated by lawyers i.e. the politicians don't have a legal background as much as they do in US. Public prosecutors don't routinely run for elections and hence have an interest in promoting themselves as "tough on crime". AFAIK, terrifying the defendant with disproportionate punitive threats and forcing him/her into a plea deal is not an issue in India. There, the problems are more around the legal process taking simply too long due to inadequately funded institutions, outdated laws and generally a less agile system (poorer country), rather than an overzealous application.

      That said, both India *and US* do have arbitrary application of law - due to different reasons and cause different sets of problems. Corruption is of course more in India, as you would expect in any country with its per capita income. Yet, I'd say that far... far more people are put in prison in US due to arbitrary application of law than in India, even though the due process is said to be much better in US.

    4. Re:Alarmism by Maritz · · Score: 1

      The US incarceration rate appears to be a feature rather than a bug.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    5. Re:Alarmism by mjwx · · Score: 2

      All this is pointless hyperventilating by people who understand little about India.

      This. People who have never travelled don't understand how these things work in places like India. Everything is corrupt. Everyone takes and makes payouts. No-one rocks the boat.

      What has happened is that the movie moguls paid the politicians to make these laws. The politicians took the money and made the law. The law will never be enforced because it relies on the police.

      The police also take bribes. So do the judges. Most crimes can be gotten out of with a nominal sum of money. This is why the charges will never be enforced, the worst case scenario is that they're used as a new way to collect bribe money for a little while. Actually enforcing the law is rocking the boat. This means it gets attention, people start asking questions, politicians who took the bribes will be looked at and whilst it's OK to take bribes it's never OK to admit it. The only people untouchable are those who made the bribes for the law... but that is solely due to the fact they have enough money to pay their way out of any trouble they might get in.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  13. Re:Not to be that guy... by Thor+Ablestar · · Score: 1

    The killing in self-defense shouldn't be a crime, too.

  14. Only one currency to pay it in. by Errol+backfiring · · Score: 1

    These fines should off course be paid in zero rupee notes.

    --
    Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
  15. Evil Corp by NikhilDumbre · · Score: 1

    We need Mr.Robot

  16. Re:Maybe... by Maritz · · Score: 1

    Off you go.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  17. Re:And you want to outsource your tech support the by Maritz · · Score: 1

    So (a) you think Trump will win and (b) you think he's going to actually try to do competent things when in the job? lol.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  18. Re:Perhaps death isn't so unreasonable... by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

    If you're in a life and death case with starving kids, maybe 'art' isn't the best way to go about feeding them.

    --
    Wanna buy a shirt?
    https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
  19. Re:Judges don't understand technology by jandersen · · Score: 1

    Sure, some judges may have decent knowledge, but as a whole they only ever had to learn law. The trouble is, they have been hoodwinked by The media who are driven by money - not right and wrong.

    I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of judges - and possibly the legal system. One of the things that really surprised me the first time I saw it in print, was the legal definition of "justice": Justice is whatever the law says, as interpreted through the courts - whether or not this in any way matches any moral viewpoints of what justice is. And the purpose of a judge is to interpret the word of the law as it has been interpreted by legal practice; ideally, a judge should ask "Did X break the law or not?" and make his judgement accordingly, without looking at whether the law is reasonable or morally defensible - or makes any sense at all. Understanding of technology is almost irrelevant - it is the job of the legal councellors to bring in the relevant expertise and to convince the judge/jury that they are right.

    As to whether the law should be "right" or "fair" or "just" in some wider, moral sense - that is a question for the lawmakers, and ultimately, the voters.

  20. Re:Welcome to India by jma05 · · Score: 1

    Rapes in India: about 37,000 per year for a country of 1.26 BILLION. Press reports it as a rape every 20 min.
    Rapes in US: 1,200,000 per year for a country the fourth of India according to CDC. No one talks about it.
    Obviously, BOTH are under-reporting.
    If you take a large country as India or China, every measure will be automatically large. Talking absolute numbers rather than per capita adjusted numbers is either dumb or malicious journalism. During the Delhi rape coverage, not one newspaper I read talked about per capita rates.

    Let's be realistic. For a poor country, the rights of women in India are no worse than similar poor countries. At least in India, the public holds large protests over rape. Don't see that much elsewhere.