People downloading songs onto their mobiles or just listening to such songs are liable to prosecution under the copyright act, according to officials of the Indian Music Industry (IMI).
The IMI officials were speaking here on Friday after an awareness course was conducted for officers of Bengal Police. Senior officers said they were unaware of the facts till the officials told them.
“I have seen my son listening to music on his mobile. I don’t know whether he will be prosecuted under the piracy act,” said RN Sirkar, inspector general of police, training, West Bengal Police.
The IMI is a voluntary body that was set up by music companies in 1936. It works towards prevention of music piracy in the country. There are a number of retired IPS officers in the organisation.
VJ Lazarus, president of the IMI, said every year the Indian music industry loses approximately Rs 700 crore to piracy. “But the new threat today is mobile phone chip piracy. We estimate that the total revenue loss to this form of piracy is about Rs 300 crore,” Lazarus said.
According to him, downloading songs onto mobiles from free websites is illegal.
“People doing so will be violating sections 51 and 63 of Copyright Act, 1957,” Lazarus said. The maximum punishment for the crime is six months imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000.
However, most people downloading free songs onto their mobiles are not aware of the violation. “Sometimes, mobile phone sellers provide extra facilities such as downloaded songs to woo customers. This is absolutely illegal,” said Savio D’souza, secretary general of IMI.
Authorities are not targeting the end users of such piracy—mobile phone users. “We know that most do not know about the law and so aren’t aware that they are committing a crime. This can be stopped if people stop downloading free music from web sites,” he said.
The police too were not aware of such a violation. “We have to go through the copyright act before I can comment,” said RN Sirkar.