Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, etc. have not signed on to the self-regulation provided by Center, the PIL said.
New Delhi:
The Supreme Court today requested the response of the Center on a petition to regulate OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney + Hotstar by an autonomous body.
A bank consisting of Chief Justice SA Bobde and Judges AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian issued notices to the central government, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the Internet and Mobile Association of India.
We will issue a notice, the Supreme Court said upon hearing the statement presented by advocates Shashank Shekhar Jha and Apurva Arhatia seeking a suitable board / institution / association for monitoring and managing content on different digital media / OTT / Streaming platforms.
OTT / Streaming and different digital media platforms have surely given an outlet for filmmakers and artists to publish their content without worrying about obtaining authorization certificates for their films and series from the censorship board, according to the statement.
At present, however, there is no law or autonomous body that regulates digital content to monitor and manage this digital content and it is made available to the general public without any filter or projection, he said.
The lack of legislation that governs OTT / Streaming platforms becomes evident with each passing day and with each new case that is presented for these reasons.
The government faces pressure to fill this gap with regulations from the public and the judiciary; Still, the relevant government departments have not done anything significant to regularize these OTT / Streaming platforms, according to the statement.
None of the OTT / Streaming platforms, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney + Hotstar and Zee5, have signed the self-regulation provided by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting since February 2020, he said.
The ministry had previously told the higher court in a separate case that there is a need to regulate digital media and that the court may first appoint a committee of people as amicus before setting guidelines regarding the regulation of hate speech in the media.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
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