The Delhi High Court on Thursday said “it appears” that when anything was uploaded on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter the websites got a licence to the intellectual property rights of the content without paying any royalty and asked the Centre whether it was aware of this.
“It appears there are certain settings by which a user of social media can opt to restrict the use of intellectual property rights (IPR). It also appears there can be grant of IPR licence for the content uploaded,” a Bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva said. “Is the government aware of it?” the court asked. Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain sought time to place before it the “exact nature” of contract entered into by the government and its departments with social media sites.
The court also said when the government gives royalty-free licence to Facebook without anything in return, “it was akin to (giving) state largesse.” It asked the ASG to place before it, by July 30, the exact nature of the contract it has entered into with the social media sites.
The Bench, during the hearing, observed that technology has advanced so fast that people and the government in India have not understood it. “If they don’t understand it, they will miss the bus,” it said and suggested upgrading the National Informatics Centre.
The Bench was hearing a PIL petition filed by former BJP leader K. N. Govindacharya, through advocate Virag Gupta, who has raised questions on the use of social media by government departments.
During the hearing, the court asked Facebook whether there was a setting by which a user could decide not to share content with anyone and opt not to give licence for material uploaded to the site.
After the lawyer for Facebook sought time to respond to the query, the court told the Centre, “If there is no such setting, you are giving them a world-wide licence to use the content, royalty free...” It suggested that the government enter into a special contract with such sites.
