Is Torrent Downloading illegal n the user's have to face imprisonment

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Copyright Act 2012 restricts such tendencies.

Section 65A. (J) Any person who circumvents an effective technological measure applied for the purpose of protecting any of the rights conferred by this Act, with the intention of infringing such rights, shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to two years and shall also be liable to fine. (2) Nothing in sub-section (1) shall prevent any person from,- ( a) doing anything referred to therein for ·a purpose not expressly prohibited by this Act: Provided that any person facilitating circumvention by another person of a technological measure for such a purpose shall maintain a complete record of such other person including his name, address and all relevant particulars necessary to identify him and the purpose for which he bas been facilitated; or (b) doing anything necessary to conduct encryption research using a lawfully obtained encrypted copy; or (c) conducting any lawful investigation; or (d) doing anything necessary for the purpose of testing the security of a computer system or a computer network with the authorisation of its owner; or (e) operator; or (f) doing anything necessary to circumvent technological measures intended for identification or surveillance of a user; or (g) taking measures necessary io the interest of national security. 65B. Any person, who knowingly,- (!) removes or alters any rights management information without authority, or {it) distributes, imports for distribution, broadcasts or communicates to the public. without authority, copies of any work, or performance knowing that electronic rights management information has been removed or altered without authority, shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to two years and shall also be liable to fine: Provided that if the rights management information has been tampered with in any work, the owner of copyright in such work may also avail of civil remedies provided under Chapter XII against lite persons indulging in such acts.

The only reason that India has not been able to successfully ban these services is because the servers rest outside India and we don’t have any law to extend our jurisdiction to that extent today. As an end user if you download a pirated version of things you are not entitled to, you can be booked criminally under this Act and can face prison for up to 2 years.

Government is trying to set up a permanent Copyright Board and also a Copyright Enforcement Agency Council to enforce the provisions out of law books.

Advocate Siddhant Sharma LawRato