Indian State Says You Can Be Jailed If They Think You'll Infringe Copyrights Or Share 'Lascivious' Content In The Future

from the ridiculous-and-dangerous dept

Mon, Aug 25th 2014 7:45am — Mike Masnick

Over the weekend, Engadget had a post claiming that India has said it's illegal to "like" blasphemous content. The headline there somewhat misstates what's actually happening, but what's actually going on is no less ridiculous. It is not all of India, but rather the state of Karnataka (which includes the city of Bangalore), which has passed a new law officially called "The Karnataka Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug-offenders, Gamblers, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Slum-Grabbers and Video or Audio Pirates (Amendment) Bill, 2014" though it is being locally referred to as the Goonda Act. The main thing it has done is taken offenses under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and Indian Copyright Act, 1957, and let the government take people into preventative custody if they think you're going to break one of those laws. And, the law is written so broadly that it can also potentially be used against various activities online:

Until now, people with a history of offences like bootlegging, drug offences and immoral trafficking could be taken into preventive custody. But the government, in its enthusiasm, while adding acid attackers and sexual predators to the law, has also added 'digital offenders'. While it was thought to be against audio and video pirates, Bangalore Mirror has found it could be directed at all those who frequent FB, Twitter and the online world, posting casual comments and reactions to events unfolding around them.

The implications here for a variety of things are massive. Planning to share something that someone merely claims is covered by their copyright? You can get a year in jail without a chance of bail. Ditto for forwarding a photo that the government decides is "obscene."

Advocate Nagendra Naik says, "The Goonda Act provides for preventive arrest. In the Information Technology Act and The Copyright Act, you have to commit the offence to be arrested. But here, you can be taken into preventive custody even before you commit the said offences. In normal arrests, you can straightaway apply for bail. But under the Goonda Act, you cannot. There is a long process of review and you will be in custody at least till then. The third impact is, you can have a history sheet started against you by the police. Technically, your slips on WhatsApp will attract the Goonda Act against you."

The fact that both the IT Act and the Copyright Act are already excessive is only further exacerbated by the Goonda Act allowing for preventative arrests. As the Bangalore Mirror notes:

Section 67 of the IT Act will be the most dangerous for the common man with a smartphone in hand now. The section, "Publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form," includes "any material which is lascivious or appeal to the prurient interest." This could have a very broad interpretation.

A useful Constitutional analysis of the new law, highlights the many problems with the law. It notes that including these kinds of activities is classic prior restraint, which is not allowed in India.

The Goonda Act, with its wide-ranging preventive detention provisions for a whole host of offences (295A, 153A, 67 IT Act and so on) takes no account of the Supreme Court’s carefully crafted proximity requirement between speech and public order. Consequently, it is over-broad: i.e., it prohibits speech that it is entitled to prohibit (that bearing a proximate connection with public order), and that which it is not entitled to prohibit (all other kinds of speech). This makes it clearly unconstitutional. It is to be hoped that the Act will be swiftly challenged before the Courts, and struck down – or at least, the offending portions severed from the rest.

Others have noted that, as in the US, things like state laws cannot incorporate and expand federal laws, and yet that seems to be exactly what the Goonda law is trying to do here.

Here's more from the Bangalore Mirror on that issue:

Supreme Court advocate KV Dhananjay says, "The definition of a 'digital offender' is simply laughable. I do not think that whoever asked the state government to include 'digital offence' under the Goonda Act has carefully read the Constitution of India. Under the Constitution, both copyright and telecommunications are exclusive central subjects. This means that states simply cannot make any law on these subjects."

And another example of how this law is absolutely ridiculous:

Sunil Abraham gives two examples by which the amended Goonda Act will become a ruthless piece of legislation. "If I publish an image of a naked body as part of a scientific article about the human body, is it obscene or not? It will not be obscene and, if I am arrested under the IT Act, I will be produced before the magistrate within 24 hours and can explain it to him. But now, I will be arrested under the Goonda Act and need not be produced before a magistrate for 90 days. It can be extended to one year. So for one year, I will be in jail even if I have not committed any wrong. Another example pertains to bringing offences under the Copyright Act under the Goonda Act. In the Copyright Act, there is an exception for reporting, research, educational and people with disability. A visually impaired person, for example, can, without paying royalty, convert a book into another format like Braille or audio and share it with another visually impaired person on a non-profit basis. But if he is arrested under Goonda Act, he will be in jail for one year, even before he does it."

As multiple people discussing this new law have noted, it seems clearly unconstitutional, but will almost certainly be abused (and enable corruption) in the meantime. The fact that law enforcement can jail you without bail as a "preventative" measure based on their belief that you might do something that infringes or which is "blasphemous" (without any real definition) is dangerously excessive.

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Filed Under: copyright, goonda act, india, indian copyright act, it act of 2000, karnataka, pre crime, preventative arrests

27 Comments

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Ninja (profile), 25 Aug 2014 @ 7:49am

Hollywood being prophetic again. Minority report is upon us!
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That One Guy (profile), 25 Aug 2014 @ 7:55am

What could go wrong?
'Preventative arrests', where someone can be accused of a crime, or accused of possibly, at some point in the future, maybe breaking the law, and locked up for months at a time, even a year without being able to defend themselves...

Oh yeah, I can't possibly imagine this law being horribly abused, like, oh, by getting people you don't like, or who present a 'problem', thrown in a cell for a few months to 'teach them a lesson'... /s
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2014 @ 7:58am

This is much easier
Than actually identifying, apprehending, and prosecuting the violent rapists/kidnappers/torturers/murderers who prey on women in India. I'm sure everyone responsible patted each other on the back and congratulated themselves on a job well done while elsewhere in the country yet another gang rape was taking place.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2014 @ 8:01am

wow! seems to me we are heading more and faster into the 'Minority Report' area! before long, we will be arrested while still in bed because we had dreams, even more so if the dreams were of, shall we say, an 'erotic nature'!!
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2014 @ 8:10am

Re:
More like Hollywood getting their way, jail the pirates before they share a file.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2014 @ 8:10am

Jealousy
I think someone is jealous of the City of London Police, and playing at one-up-man-ship.

Are they doin' it rite?
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 25 Aug 2014 @ 8:12am

And them being unwilling to pursue leaders who violate the law in 3...2...1...

PreCrime, because we know all of you are evil bastards.
Why not just put a fence around the area & declare it a prison first. Then they courts can start hearing, in a year, if they deserve to be let out.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2014 @ 8:13am

Re:
Isn't the moral of Minority Report - the short story, not the movie - about who watch the watcher? He shot the general to prevent him from closing the project.

I don't like the notion of "a project" being protected by "someone" willing to go to extremity to keep it alive...
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2014 @ 8:14am

Population thinning, and re-education camps.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2014 @ 8:17am

It almost seems like this might be India's version of the USA's infamous "material witness" laws -- routinely abused by authorities to justify indefinite imprisonment without trial.
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TheResidentSkeptic (profile), 25 Aug 2014 @ 8:24am

But the good parts of this...
1) This will completely eliminate overcrowding in High Schools and Colleges. Kids are all pirates anyway and we won't have to hand out scholarship money to those undeserving kids. More for the politicians to hand out to their friends (see #2 below)

2) The for-profit prison industry will become the countries largest business, and keep builders and guards busy for many decades to come. They may even surpass the US at locking up their own citizens. The profits from this venture will enable ever more political contributions (see #1 above)

3) After having been incarcerated for those pesky 20-something's years, they will all come out and immediately start buying copies of every record and movie made that they missed seeing.

/snark /sarc
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Ninja (profile), 25 Aug 2014 @ 9:32am

Re: Re:
Oh, welcome to the modern Governments!
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Ninja (profile), 25 Aug 2014 @ 9:36am

Re: What could go wrong?
Sadly this is very common in dictatorial regimes. Brazil still has this lingering mechanism from the dictatorial period that started in 60's where you can arrest people preventively and its reasoning is that a criminal may flee or try to hijack investigations. The good part is that our justice system is pretty swift in granting habeas corpus to the arrested. If law enforcement sees fit they appeal the decision and this may be overruled by a higher court though I'm fairly sure the cops should ask first instead of being the appealing part...
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Ninja (profile), 25 Aug 2014 @ 9:37am

Re:
Arrest all newborns! They might commit crimes when they grow up!
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Ninja (profile), 25 Aug 2014 @ 9:39am

Re: But the good parts of this...
Yeah, arrest everybody! But then again, who will pay the taxes that oil this system?
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Chris Brand, 25 Aug 2014 @ 9:48am

Just lock everyone up
Given that showing that everyone likely infringes copyright 80+ times a day, and you have justification to lock the entire population up. The only problem being that there will be nobody left to guard the prisons...
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2014 @ 10:09am

Oh common- All those Indian people liking burger king on face book are clearly dangerous blasphemous terrorists. I for one am thankful for chick-a-filla for sponsoring such a sensible law.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2014 @ 11:33am

So?
"Others have noted that, as in the US, things like state laws cannot incorporate and expand federal laws, and yet that seems to be exactly what the Goonda law is trying to do here."

Be sure and tell that to the cops as they arrest you.
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Andyroo, 25 Aug 2014 @ 1:54pm

When it eventually comes to copyright laws being changed all of these instances of overreach are going to be great bits of evidence that trusting the collection agencies and their palls does not work at all and they must be removed from the equation. In fact any collection agency must be a non profit run by the government in a way that it cannot be abused and that those that deserve to be paid are. Any new laws should be in favour of the consumers and not the copyright maximalists, the internet has changed everything and nobody deserves to be paid except for the content creators.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2014 @ 5:01pm

Re: Re: But the good parts of this...
The prison guards, of course (we can't let the owners pay for it, or they might not want to create all those jobs).
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2014 @ 5:12pm

Gotta watch out for those Goondas.
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LAB (profile), 25 Aug 2014 @ 8:55pm

Re:
Ha! beat me to it!
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RealityBites, 10 Jun 2015 @ 6:45am

The law is mis-spelt slightly.. Should be Goon-Duh!
At least there is somewhere in the world dumber than the USA system. It would be sad if the USA lead the world in everything.
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RealityBites, 10 Jun 2015 @ 6:48am

Welcome to the Corpocracy
Look at who runs the country, then you understand the laws they pass. Wait until TPP is passed then the USA will taste the corporate whip without restraint.
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