Delhi High Court restrains Whatsapp and Telegram to stop circulating e-paper over copyright infringement

Amid reports over the circulation of e-papers, Delhi High Court retrained Whatsapp and Telegram to stop circulating e-papers of times of India and sister publication Navbharat Times and issued notice to the administrator of the group for alleged copyright violations.

The High Court said, "prima facie the act of illegally circulating the e-papers of the plaintiff on the defendants' platforms is violative of its copyright and ad-interim injunction is granted in the favour of Bennett, Coleman and Company Ltd."

The High Court also issued notice to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for its response to the suit. The plaintiff contended that the e-papers are circulated among various Whatsapp and Telegram groups which amount to copyright infringement.

"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, by sharing unauthorized and illegal copies of the same in PDF format to/ among their users or subscribers on different platforms such as websites and mobile applications, etc. The foregoing actions by such web portals, mobile applications, social media platforms, and their users necessitate the filing of the instant suit to protect against and prevent the infringement of its proprietary information/content," it added.

This issue comes to the light during the lockdown in 2020 where various people started downloading the e-papers and circulated them on platforms. After acknowledging the fact, a notice was sent to the platforms but no such actions were taken.

"The cause of action further arose when despite various cease and desist notices being issued to offending websites, no action was taken and the said websites continued to circulate the Plaintiffs e-papers. The cause of action is continuing and is accruing day by day and shall continue to so accrue till the Defendants cease with their impugned activities," it said.