I&B Ministry
AIDCF members continue to not comply with the new price regime and make false claims – IBDF
Mumbai : Indian Broadcasting & Digital Foundation (IBDF) has alleged that the All India Digital Cable Federation (AIDCF) made certain false statements about the new pricing structure, which went into effect on 1 February 1, 2023.
The revised Rules and Tariff Order were announced on 22 November , 2022, by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), following a protracted consultation process. The AIDCF and its members took part in the consultations as well and were aware of the deadlines set by Trai.
The IBDF letter said, “They understood that the law mandates that the TV channels could only be provisioned under a signed interconnect agreement. As of today, all the broadcasters, all DTH providers and most of the cable operators, including some AIDCF members, have implemented the amended regulatory framework. Consequently, more than 90 per cent of the DPOs have signed the revised interconnect agreement issued by the broadcasters, thereby choosing to comply with the law and ensuring that the service is not disrupted for majority of the subscribers.”
IBDF stated that Trai’s 2017 regulations brought in a separate charge of Network Capacity Fees (NCF), which DPOs charge and collect from the subscribers for provisioning access to the TV services. DPOs collect subscription fees in advance from consumers but do not pass the share to broadcasters in a timely manner. The price hike during implementation is largely due to the demand of the increase in the NCF by the DPOs and not at the back of the channel prices.
“While no pay TV channel is provided against the said charge, the burden of this cost ultimately results in making the TV services expensive for the subscribers. As a result, the AIDCF’s claim that broadcasters are driving up TV channel prices and that 45 millions households have been impacted by channel disruption is completely false. Having not been granted any interim relief in multiple High Courts, the AIDCF is seeking to invoke public sympathy through a false narrative,” added IBDF.
IBDF further alleged that while the broadcasters are under no legal obligation to provide any additional opportunity to the AIDCF members, they offered such DPOs additional 48 hours to sign the revised interconnect agreement in order to continue receiving TV signals without interruption, keeping in mind the interest of the subscribers. While some operators have signed the agreement, AIDCF members, have chosen to ignore it and deliberately refused to sign the revised Interconnect offer. The broadcasters, therefore, had no legal recourse but to disconnect TV services from the DPOs that refused to comply with the regulatory framework.
“AIDCF is not only in defiance of the law but is also holding less than 25 million subscribers hostage, solely for its own commercial reasons and circulating misleading information. The press release issued by AIDCF tantamounts to an attempt to influence the public with respect to the matter pending consideration before the court. These DPOS are minority in number compared to the ones who have already signed and due to their non-compliance, are depriving consumers of their favourite channels. In this scenario, Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation (IBDF) would like to urge the impacted viewers to reach out to other operators to subscribe to their favourite channels,” said IBDF.
“Consumers are the centre of any broadcasters’ strategy and AIDCF members are only causing inconvenience to them by making false claims and leaving them without their favourite shows for selfish reasons. Broadcasters are constantly introducing new channels with engaging new content, further creating proliferation in the industry, creating avenues for employment and providing a variety of entertainment options to the consumers,” added IBDF.
I&B Ministry
India turns up the heat on piracy, orders Telegram to axe 3,142 channels and blocks 800 websites
New legal teeth, nodal officers and notices to intermediaries signal that the government is done playing nice with copyright thieves
NEW DELHI: India’s war on film piracy just got significantly more aggressive. The government has ordered Telegram to remove 3,142 channels distributing pirated content, blocked access to around 800 websites through internet service providers, and put the full weight of freshly sharpened legislation behind the crackdown. The message from New Delhi is unambiguous: the free ride for copyright thieves is over.
Minister of state for information and broadcasting L. Murugan spelled out the legal architecture to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The Cinematograph (Amendment) Act, 2023, he said, now contains specific provisions designed to make piracy a genuinely painful proposition. Sections 6AA and 6AB prohibit unauthorised recording and transmission of films, with violations attracting a minimum of three months’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 3 lakh. At the upper end, offenders face three years behind bars and fines of up to 5 per cent of a film’s audited gross production cost — a figure that, for a big-budget production, could run into crores.
The legislation also gives the government powers to act against intermediaries hosting infringing content, by notifying them under Section 79(3) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and compelling takedowns and blocking actions. Under Section 79(3)(b), intermediaries are legally required to remove or disable access to unlawful content upon receiving government notice or court orders. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, add a further layer of obligation, requiring platforms to ensure their services are not used to host or distribute content that violates copyright or proprietary rights.
To put enforcement into practice, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has established a dedicated institutional mechanism, complete with nodal officers to receive complaints. Copyright holders, authorised representatives or individuals can report piracy through a prescribed format, after which the government issues notices to intermediaries to disable access to infringing links.
The most headline-grabbing action came on 11 March 2026, when Telegram was formally notified under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act and directed to remove and disable 3,142 channels found to be distributing unauthorised content belonging to OTT platforms, content owners and producers. The complaints that triggered the action came from OTT platforms including JioCinema and Amazon Prime Video, which alleged that copyrighted films, web series and other material were being shared on the platform on a massive scale. Telegram’s architecture, with its large file-sharing limits and capacity for user anonymity, has made it a favoured vehicle for exactly this kind of large-scale piracy.
The Telegram action sits within a broader pattern of escalating enforcement. Just days before the Lok Sabha statement, the ministry banned five OTT platforms for streaming obscene content: MoodXVIP, Koyal Playpro, Digi Movieplex, Feel and Jugnu. In July 2025, the Centre ordered the blocking of 25 OTT platforms accused of streaming obscene, vulgar or pornographic material, a list that included ALTT, ULLU, Big Shots App, Desiflix, Boomex, Navarasa Lite, Gulab App, Kangan App, Bull App, Jalva App, ShowHit, Wow Entertainment, Look Entertainment, Hitprime, Feneo, ShowX, Sol Talkies, Adda TV, HotX VIP, Hulchul App, MoodX, NeonX VIP, Fugi, Mojflix and Triflicks.
Rule 3(1)(b) of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, provides the regulatory hook for those actions, prohibiting platforms from hosting content that is obscene, pornographic, invasive of privacy, gender-harassing, racially or ethnically objectionable, or that promotes hatred and violence.
For an industry that loses billions of rupees annually to piracy, the direction of travel is welcome. The question, as always, is not whether the laws exist, but whether the enforcement machinery can keep pace with the ingenuity of those determined to circumvent it. Three thousand channels down, and the pirates are already busy opening three thousand more.
