INS warning: Sharing copies of newspapers in WhatsApp or Telegram illegal!
Posted on: 05/May/2020 2:46:27 PM
As a preventive measure against the raging coronavirus pandemic, lockdown conditions have been imposed and as such, except essential services, all other organisatons/sectors/industries do not function!
Among the essential services, the sector of the newspaper industry is functioning during lockdown. However, the publishers encounter a lot of hardships in selling their newspapers.
In this scenario, many of the social networking media users have entered into the habit of taking copies of newspaper reports and sharing them in social networking media such as WhatsApp and Telegram! This practice is illegal and leads to loss of revenue for the publishers by reduction in subscribers of the newspapers ande-paper subscribers as well – leading to losses!
Reviewing this situation, Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has appealed to the public:
“Taking copies of newspaper reports in.pdf form or copies and sharing them in social networking media such as WhatsApp and Telegram is illegal. The publishing agencies MUST TAKE STRINGENT LEGAL AGAINST THESE VIOLATORS! Hefty penalties MUST be levied!”
INS have also appealed that Newspaper industry sector must mention in their Apps, websites and newspapers must clearly mention: “Copying a newspaper report is illegal and as such, stringent legal action with a hefty penalty will be imposed.
INS has also asked the newspaper industry sector to explore limiting the extent of downloading as .pdf files and also including codes to identify the individuals, etc.
