The Madhya Pradesh high court has imposed a ban on editing livestream footage of court proceedings and uploading trimmed, edited versions on the internet.
While hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) on Monday, a bench of chief justice Suresh Kumar Kait and justice Vivek Jain imposed an immediate ban on editing the live streaming of the hearing and uploading it on the internet media platform, an advocate familiar with the matter said.
Petitioner Dr. Vijay Bajaj, a social activist from Damoh, said, тАЬThe MP high court has framed rules (in 2021) for live streaming of judicial proceedings and there is a clear provision of copyrights of live streaming are with the high court. Under these rules, arbitrary use, sharing, translation or uploading of live streaming on any platform is prohibited. Despite this, economic benefits are being taken by editing and uploading live streaming clippings on many internet media platforms.тАЭ
The court said the rules provide for taking permission from the court before uploading live streaming of proceedings on social media platforms and on television.
тАЬDespite this, there is a misuse of live streaming of court proceedings as the respondent Nos. 5 to 7 (read social media companies) have made mockery of the entire justice delivery system by uploading, transmitting, sharing, usage, facilitating uploads etc. тАШMemesтАЩ, тАШReelsтАЩ, тАШShortsтАЩ, etc., of live court proceedings on social platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and other like platforms,тАЭ the court said in its order.
The court has sought replies from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Meta, YouTube, X and other media platforms within four weeks, said Mukesh Agrawal, an advocate for the petitioner.
The petitioner also said the money earned by the internet media by misusing the HCтАЩs live streaming should be recovered and uploaded clippings should be deleted.
