Action against OTT seeked by Parliamentary panel

On Monday, a panel led by Shiv Sena MP Prataprao Jadhav met with representatives of the information and broadcasting ministry.People with knowledge of the situation said that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology has requested that the government keep a monthly record of complaints against over-the-top (OTT) platforms and identify those that default the most in order to take action against them.The order was given at a Monday meeting between members of the communication and broadcasting ministry and Shiv Sena MP Prataprao Jadhav’s panel.

The panel questioned the representatives regarding the steps the ministry has taken to prevent the broadcast of pirated content and to combat piracy.The two-hour discussion covered topics like movie piracy, censorship, and complaints about OTT services like Netflix and Hotstar.The panel recommended that the government designate a nodal officer to receive offline complaints in all regional languages. Some people are unable to submit complaints in English. An official stated that the procedure needed to be made more approachable.In order to crack down on movie piracy more severely, the government is attempting to modify the Cinematograph Act. According to a report by HT in November of last year, it is preparing to enact a clause that will forbid and shut down websites that are uploading movies illegally.