Violation of Copyright Act on sharing news epaper PDFs on social media | Website links are permitted
Creating a group service on WhatsApp, Telegram or other social media platforms to share PDF copies of Indian newspapers may attract legal action.
Updated: Dec 2, 2020, 19:52 IST
"It is okay to forward PDF files, which are free, but it is not okay to copy a PDF from a paid e-paper service and forward it. Basically, it is being targeted for aggregators who are trying to increase their traffic because of other newspapers; it is piracy" - Shailesh Gupta, President - Indian Newspaper Society
Sharing of News Paper online as an e-paper snapshot or PDF in India may land the sender in trouble. This sharing is considered violating the Copyright Act 1957 and Trade Marks Act 1999.
Accordingly, creating a group service on WhatsApp, Telegram or other social media platforms to share PDF copies of Indian newspapers may attract legal action. Hence, before sharing the PDF of a reputed print media house will be a considered illegal.
“The unlawful and unauthorized circulation / distribution of newspapers and contents thereof constitutes infringement of Copyright under Section 51(b)(ii) of the Copyright Act, 1957 and the same is liable to be injuncted underSection 55 of the Copyright Act.”
However, sharing links of online newspapers is legal as the user is landing on the webpage of the online newspaper. The easiest way to share news online is by sending links to the articles as there are no restrictions on sharing official links of news stories online.
Not only media companies, even social media like WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram, etc may take legal action on sharing PDF of epapers as it violates their own terms and conditions for copyrighted content.
Source: Media Reports
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