In a progressive judgment, the Delhi High Court held on December 23, 2016, that MySpace, a social networking platform was liable to take down copyright infringed content within 36 hours of “actual knowledge” of the infringement. The case had arisen in 2007 when Super Cassettes Industries Limited filed a suit against MySpace alleging that it allowed its users to upload and share Super Cassette’s copyrighted work without permission.
The judgement passed on December 23, 2016, by a division bench of the Court reversed an earlier 2012 of a single bench of the Court that had held MySpace was liable for the infringement despite it having no specific knowledge of the infringement. In the 2016 judgement, the Court held that in case of internet intermediaries, Section 51(a)(ii) of the Copyright Act, 1957 stipulates actual knowledge of the infringement and not general awareness.
Thus, this judgement strengthened the safe harbour immunity provided to intermediaries in India under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and relieved Myspace from pre-screening user-generated content.