New Delhi: The Government of India has served a notice to the messaging platform Telegram, directing it to crack down on the "widespread dissemination" of pirated films, OTT content, and other audio-visual material on its platform, government officials said on Saturday.
In its notice, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) sought an Action Taken Report (ATR) from Telegram within 15 days, with officials saying the government's approach marks a shift from piecemeal takedowns of pirated content to ensuring greater platform accountability.
The ministry is learnt to have informed Telegram—which was temporarily blocked in India in June as a precautionary measure to prevent any paper leak during the NEET re-examination—that copyright infringement is not merely a civil violation but also a criminal offence under the Copyright Act, 1957, and the Cinematograph Act, 1952.
"The Ministry has made it clear that Telegram cannot merely wait for the government to identify each piracy channel one by one. A purely reactive, channel-by-channel takedown approach may not be sufficient to demonstrate due diligence by the platform, as required under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021," officials said.
The notice to Telegram follows the Union Government's recent regulatory action against Meta. On Wednesday, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a notice to Meta over WhatsApp's proposed username feature. Later in the week, it also decided to summon the company over Instagram advertisements allegedly promoting child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Telegram and another messaging platform, Signal, have also been served notices by MeitY regarding their existing username features.
Meanwhile, the I&B Ministry has sought details of Telegram's grievance redressal mechanism for producers, OTT platforms and law enforcement agencies, sources said. Telegram has also been reminded that, as an intermediary, it is required to comply with due diligence obligations under the IT Act and the IT Rules, they added.
"The Government has made it clear that the continued availability of pirated content, evasive compliance, or an incomplete response may invite further examination and action under the applicable legal framework. The action has been taken to protect India's creator economy, film industry, broadcasters, OTT platforms, producers and distributors," an official said.
