The verdict of the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) regarding the regulation of Over-the-top (OTT) and streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video by an autonomous body has been put on hold as the Supreme Court sent a notice to the Central Government to get their input. A bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian issued the notices to the Central Government’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MoI&B) and Internet and Mobile Association of India(IAMAI).
This PIL was issued by the advocates Shashank Shekhar Jha and Apurva Arhatia who are looking to create an independent association for the monitoring and management of content on different OTT and digital media streaming platforms. With cinemas unlikely to reopen anytime soon (or atleast to their maximum capacity), filmmakers are releasing their features on these OTTs without any proper clearance from the censorship boards for maximum profits. And allowing the OTTs themselves to monitor their films would be unwise in such a situation.
As there are no present laws or autonomous bodies monitoring or managing the digital content, these videos are available for public viewing without any virtual filter. As the days pass and more new cases arise, the Government is taking heat to fill this void with regulations from the public and certain judiciary members. Still, no relevant government department has done anything with regards to this situation as of yet.
Major OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+Hotstar and Zee5 has not signed the self-regulation provided by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting since February 2020, the PIL further states. In a separate case altogether, the ministry had advised the court to appoint a committee of persons who have experience in the field, who will then set up regulations for these streaming platforms.
With cases such as these, we will probably have to wait another month before we get a response out of the Central Government. So it’s time to sit and wait, while they slowly work their way up to the issue and then hopefully conduct their own research before they give their input to the Supreme Court.