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06 October 2022
Google received 37,173 complaints from India in July 2022 with regard to illegal online activities – a record number and an increase of 13.6 percent from those in June 2022.
A bulk of these complaints involved copyright infringement, totaling 35,341.
In its monthly transparency report in compliance with India’s new IT Rules, 2021, Google stated that a single intellectual property infringement happening in 100 specific unique URLs is counted as 100 separate IP infringements.
“Since last year, there has been a consistent increase in the number of reporting as well as the removal action, and I believe this is a good trend to observe in our fight against online piracy. It means that IP owners are becoming aware of their IP and also the need for enforcements. I think that the number of online IP violations is generally very high in the current times,” said Aditi Verma Thakur, senior partner at Ediplis Counsels in Bengaluru.
Citing the metaverse which is now evolving, she said very unique IP issues are arising from the platform – from ownership principles, joint content developments to jurisdictional issues. According to Thakur, these could be addressed through strong contractual arrangements with tight clauses on ownership, authorship, confidentiality, use case scenarios, governing law, dispute resolution and the like.
However, she stressed that the real challenge in the digital world may be that of tracing infringements at the right time.
“In order to have lesser number of random IP violations online, including copyright violations, the owners will need to be proactive, vigilant and keep a watch on online infringers, using AI-based tools and tracking mechanisms, to identify infringements of their copyrighted content. Then swift enforcement actions could be taken by initiating take down requests with the relevant digital platforms. More effective enforcements against violations along with smart tech tools for faster and efficient action would hopefully tighten the noose for online IP offenders,” said Thakur.
The rest of the user complaints from India received by Google in July consisted of reports on trademark infringement, graphic sexual content, circumvention and others.
- Espie Angelica A. de Leon
