Indian media has been wrapped up by many issues. Even as news comes in that all is not good with the media job market and that layoffs have begun, strained as the industry is, by the weakening rupee and shrinking ad spends, it is vital to revisit some of its key concerns here.
The Indian copyright law has undergone changes five times before the Copyright (Amendment) Bill of 2010 was tabled in Parliament in May 2012 and passed, and thereafter, notified. Initially enacted to primarily provide protection to the copyright of the authors and creators of original literary, dramatic, artistic and cinematographic work, it had to adapt to the adoption of the electronic format and advent of the Internet.
Although the Amendment Act is largely seen as a boon, due to progressive amendments such as ‘right to royalty’ and exceptions for persons with disabilities, issues, like those related to the dissemination of copyrighted material over digital networks, have not been sufficiently addressed by these amendments.
Undoubtedly the Act strengthens copyright protection across traditional and digital media and the Internet, while introducing royalty payments through statutory licensing rather like the PRS/MCPS.
The Act bans cover versions of copyright work for five years from the date of first recording giving an almost ‘first to market’ advantage for the original creation, but arguably preventing re-use of the work and closing down certain revenue streams. Another point to note is that the Act does not address the issue of piracy at all.
When the Bill was under much debate in the media last year, producer Ken Ghosh tweeted: “All who are part of creative process should benefit from the Copyright Amendment (Bill), which is sadly not so. Film directors, writers, choreographers and art directors don’t get any benefits from this amendment to Copyright Act.” It is also felt that the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012, is restrictive about cover versions and web freedom.
Then there is the issue of the Competition Amendment Bill, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2012. It primarily seeks to bring significant changes to Indian competition law, the most significant among them being the introduction of the concept of ‘joint dominance’ under Section 4 of the Competition Act, 2002, providing for an enabling provision which will give the government the flexibility to specify sector/industry specific asset or turnover thresholds, which trigger the pre-merger notification requirement.
The Bill also seeks to make way for easier operation of the Act’s ‘search and seizure’ provisions and several other key changes to further enhance the powers of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and pose a new set of challenges for entities doing business in India.
Given the warped and long-drawn legislative process in India, the Competition Act — if it is enforced with the amendments — may require further changes to clarify issues that have been left unattended in the current Bill itself. Such frequent amendments and changes in legislations which are not thought through impact investments adversely as investors are apprehensive of the uncertainty and loopholes in the system.
Undoubtedly, such an unsure environment is detrimental to the media industry too.
Privacy law is as personal as one can recognise it and has as much a widespread ramification as has happened in the recent debates on the individual’s right to be let alone. Earlier, when there were only newspapers and visual and electronic media was limited or non-existent, the question of privacy was a subtle one. As the world draws closer and information is available readily, and with the dawn of virtual world, there is a need being felt of centralization as startling amounts of personal information about an individual is accessible with one tap on a button. There is also the growing risk of information reaching the ‘wrong hands’.
At the moment, India does not have an independent statute protecting privacy. In fact, the right to privacy is a deemed right under the Constitution and has to be understood in the context of two fundamental rights — the Right to Freedom under Article 19 and the Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution. The courts have recognised the right to privacy as a right “implicit in the right to life and liberty guaranteed to the citizens of this country by Article 21”. The Indian law has made some exceptions to the rule of privacy in the interest of the public, especially, subsequent to the enactment of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI). The Act makes an exception under Section 8(1)(j), which exempts disclosure of any personal information which is not connected to any public activity or of public interest or which would cause an unwarranted invasion of privacy of an individual.
It is interesting to note that research has found that most Indians are unaware of privacy issues related to the Internet and online media, at a time when information dissemination is undergoing a paradigm shift to the virtual world.
“About 75 per cent of the participants had never read the privacy policy on any website that they interact with and about the same percentage of participants had never read the privacy policy of a website before sharing his/her personal information,” says the study conducted by Prof Ponnurangam Kumaraguru and Niharika Sachdeva for PreCog@IIIT-Delhi that claimed to have covered over 10,000 people in India.
‘PreCog’ is researchers’ group at Delhi’s Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology which studies, analyses, builds and evaluates security and privacy aspects of complex networked systems like social networking sites, including Twitter and Facebook.
One can thus fathom that this is an area that needs clarity, also, for the Indian media.
An issue that has troubled the media for long is whether it really requires regulation or needs to exercise constraint on its own.
The Supreme Court last year, while refusing to frame guidelines across the board for reporting sub-judice matters, laid down a constitutional principle under which aggrieved parties can seek postponement of publication of court hearings.
After receiving complaints of breach of confidentiality during the hearing of a dispute between Sahara Group and market regulator SEBI over the issue of breach of confidentiality with certain documents regarding the dispute between the two were leaked to the media, the five-judge Bench headed by then Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia laid down the constitutional principle which will allow aggrieved parties to seek from appropriate court the postponement of the publication of court hearings.
“We are not framing guidelines but we have laid down constitutional principle and appropriate writ courts will decide when the postponement order has to be passed on case-by-case basis,” the Bench, which also comprised justices D.K. Jain, S.S. Nijjar, Ranjana Prakash Desai and J.S. Khehar, said.
While saying that “guidelines on media reporting cannot be framed across the board”, the Bench was clear that postponement of publication of court proceedings “is a preventive measure and not a prohibitive and punitive measure”.
Thus, when Justice Markandey Katju, the chairman of the Press Council of India, seeks a unified media regulatory body, it needs to be understood in the perspective he puts forward the need. In his opinion piece in The Hindu he has said: “I want regulation of the media, not control. The difference between the two is that in control there is no freedom, in regulation there is freedom but subject to reasonable restrictions in the public interest. The media has become very powerful in India and can strongly impact people’s lives. Hence it must be regulated in the public interest.”
Now, that is a far cry from the private member’s Bill that Congress MP Meenakshi Natarajan was to introduce in Parliament early in May last year as it laid down a draconian set of rules clearly aimed to gag and threaten the media in the name of “protecting national interest”.
Called the Print and Electronic Media Standards and Regulation Bill, 2012, it provided for a media regulatory authority — part selected by Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari and three government nominees — with a sweeping set of powers that included imposing a “ban” or “suspending coverage” of an event or incident that “may pose a threat to national security from foreign or internal sources”.
In must be mentioned here that given the role of the virtual world in disseminating information, the Bureau of New and Concurrent Media – billed as an ‘instutionalised presence in the virtual civilisation’ to ‘disseminate information’ may be used as a body to regulate the social media space.
The I&B Minister recently suggested that journalists should be tested and “licensed” just as professionals like doctors and lawyers. But, the suggestion has been rightly slammed by the Editors Guild of India which claims it’s “recipe for total state control of the media”.
In this age of citizen journalists, bloggers and social media, it’s difficult to control the media, and apparently ridiculous to introduce restrictions on who could practice journalism. The best option in this world’s largest democracy may be self-regulation by the media.
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