Bodyguard Vs Pirates
By Techgirl

In July, 2011,  I had reported on how Reliance Entertainment had moved the Delhi High Court, which in turn, ordered all ISPs to do all they could to  prevent the piracy of movie ‘Singham’.   The ISP’s wanting to play it safe blocked many file sharing sites, some of which are legitimate. Someone will have to move the Supreme Court to get a final decision on what are the exact parameters of such a legal strategy.  (Article republished below).

Torrentfreak, which only reports on Bittorrent and Copyright, has an update on the Reliance legal strategy to stop piracy on the internet.  Apparently, this legal move by Reliance reduced piracy of its movie Singham by as much as 40 percent.

Seeing the success of such with a strategy with ‘Singham’,   Reliance has done the same with its new movie ‘Bodyguard’ starring Bollywood bad boy Salman Khan. Bodyguard will be released this week.

(Techgoss had published the following on July 23, 2011)

Airtel blocks sites
By Techgirl

This is a surprising Delhi High court order which someone should challenge in the Supreme Court.  It all started with Reliance Big Pictures moving the Delhi High Court, which in turn, ordered all ISPs to do all they could to  prevent the piracy of movie ‘Singham’.   The ISP’s wanting to play it safe blocked many file sharing sites, some of which are legitimate.

Torrentfreak, which only reports on Bittorrent and Copyright, has the following list of sites blocked from India.  While there are still some ISPs which allow access, India’s largest private Telecom Airtel has blocked the file sharing sites

“
RapidShare.com
Mediafire.com
MegaUpload.com
Hotfile.com
SendSpace.com
Fileserve.com
MegaVideo.com
VideoBB.com
Novamov.com
Movshare.net
Filesonic.com
Putlocker.com
Depositfiles.com
“

This is a fundamentally flawed methodology of fighting piracy as it harms legitimate users of such sites.  Why were these websites not given a fair chance to explain their position to the court?    If appealed, the Supreme Court may roll back the Delhi High Court order.  Last but not the least, there are tens of proxy servers that can be used to access the sites from India.

Techgoss note:  Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog techgirltalk.blogspot.com.  Techgirl has been ejected from Twitter for satirizing an Indian Minister.  Her satire blog has links to her Times of India interview detailing her being kicked out of Twitter, and then being invited back.