Sometimes, there is the odd report coming from Asia about a massive piracy bust with reportedly millions of CDs and DVDs being confiscated, but the aftermath of a major raid sometimes goes unnoticed.
There’s an interesting report from The times of India where there is a problem – there’s not enough piracy courts to deal with the load of busted pirates.
Of course, for the average North American, the concept of a “piracy court” is pretty much unheard of. Generally speaking, when someone gets sued for copyright infringement, they go through a regular court system just like any other case. Judging by what this report suggests, there is a court set aside in India to deal specifically with alleged pirates.
It may seem like overkill, but not only is there a court specifically set aside for piracy cases, the court is bogged down by the sheer volume of cases it has to deal with. The cases are “bailable” but people caught up in the system, it’s been extremely difficult. From the report:
Take the case of Madala Krishna Prasad who was arrested on charges of video piracy in Ongole on July 22, 2008.
He was remanded in judicial custody the next day. But when the bail petition was moved by his counsel, the judge expressed his helplessness as the case did not fall under his jurisdiction.
Then the counsel, K Venkata Reddy, moved another bail petition before the additional chief metropolitan magistrate court, which is the designated court for such offences. He rejected to hear the petition because the remand was in a different court.
Then the counsel moved a lunch motion in the high court on Friday. Justice P Swarup Reddy granted bail to the accused in this case. Now the counsel has to go to the Ongole court again to submit the bail documents to secure freedom for the accused . In all the accused will be in jail for more than 12 days for an offence that is bailable. “We have heard of similar cases in Anantapur and elsewhere in the state in this type of offences,” he said.
It’s not entirely clear what the report is specifically referring to when it says ‘video piracy’ and a Google search of the persons name only refers to the above article. Whether it means videos being sold on bootleg DVDs or videos being downloaded online is unclear. One might hope that resorting to courts being set aside in North America won’t be necessary.
Related Posts
- India Pressured to Sign and Ratify WIPO
- India plans free software for all
- Report Ignored Independant Research – Digital Economy Report Fiasco Widens
- German Courts – P2P Lawsuits Unconstitutional
- ‘Warez’ Pirate Gets 3yrs Probation for Copyright Infringement
Loading ...
