Torrent Take-Down: India Threatens Would-Be Pirates With Three Years in Jail

New Delhi (Sputnik) – In a massive crackdown on piracy and porn, the Indian government, in collaboration with the country's leading Internet Service Providers (ISPs), has made it almost impossible to access blocked torrent sites in the country. Internet users have said that when they tried accessing major torrenting websites, they encountered a flash message with a warning that they could be sentenced to three years in prison or a 4,500 USD fine for ‘viewing’, ‘downloading’, ‘exhibiting’ or ‘duplicating’ "an illicit copy of content under the URL" and that doing so is a punishable offence according to Sections 63, 63-A, 65 and 65-A of the Copyright Act of 1957. This has prompted angry responses from internet users.

@bavlichhori Kee hoya?

— S. I. (@hedonist_redux) 22 августа 2016 г.

This is pure and simple Digital Fascism. Jail for 'viewing' a Torrent site or file is as North Korean as we can get. https://t.co/Eq9QW4uUyV

— Ankur Bhardwaj (@Bhayankur) 21 августа 2016 г.

Earlier, only the uploaders of pirated content to websites or torrent sites were thought to be in danger of any legal prosecution. However, the latest warning applies to every Internet user who dares to even open such sites and view torrent files.

While most illegal websites in India were earlier blocked using Domain Name System (DNS) filtering, it was rather easy to bypass state firewalls and access the actual website using third-party DNS services. The latest warnings suggest that the government has now roped in big Internet Service Providers such as Tata Communications and Airtel to help them attain fool-proof blocking.