Mumbai: If you have the habit of reading e-newspapers in WhatsApp and Telegram groups, You should exit the group and stop reading the pirated copies right away as it is illegal to read it in offline. Recently Jagran Prakshan has filed a case against Telegram app for letting its users to circulate the e- copies online which incurred huge subscription revenue loss for the company.
Indian Newspaper Society (INS), the apex body for print publications also quoted that it will hurt the subscription revenues at a huge level. Experts say that the possibilities of fake news spread is high as the e-copies are editable.
M V Shreyams Kumar, Joint MD Mathrubhumi said “Content is created by organisations with a lot of investment in terms of manpower resource and technology. There is a lot of hard work put in especially during the pandemic. Instead people are able to access e- paper without subscribing to it. It raises the danger of fake news because we do not know how the content has been altered.”
According to ToI reports, Senior Supreme Court lawyer Pavan Duggal said “If a digital edition is being circulated without the permission of the owner it is a violation of the Copyright act as well as the Information Technology act section 43 which clearly says that if any attempt is made to destroy, delete or alter any information residing in a computer resource, or diminish its value or utility, it is illegal. The person will be liable to pay damages by way of compensation to the person so affected. I can understand it is being done in public interest but the law does not grant exemption on that basis.”
