A large number of Indian ISPs are blocking access to some of the world's largest file-sharing and cyberlocker sites for all their subscribers since today. Users who wish to visit these sites instead find a message stating that the site is blocked on the orders of the Department of Telecommunications, that is part of the Indian government.

When access to information is prohibited in advance or subject to preconditions following regulation by a government one can speak of censorship. Previous attempts of private parties in the Netherlands and Belgium to force ISPs to block access to illegal file sharing sites through the national courts were wrongly branded as 'censorship'. Nevertheless the anticipated measures were refused on account of disproportionality.

Though not all Indian ISPs are blocking access to the file sharing sites. Some, including the Indian state ISP, does not seem to block websites (yet), while through a number of ISPs some websites are still accessible whilst others are blocked. This could be due to technical problems.

An official statement of the Indian government about the apparent measure has not yet been made public. According to a survey of TorrentFreak the following sites are 'blacklisted':

• RapidShare.com
• Mediafire.com
• MegaUpload.com
• Hotfile.com
• SendSpace.com
• Fileserve.com
• MegaVideo.com
• VideoBB.com
• Novamov.com
• Movshare.net
• Filesonic.com
• Putlocker.com
• Depositfiles.com

For more news on enforcement of copyright in India, see previous articles on Futureofcopyright.com:

• New Internet regulation in India food for thought
• Dutch hosting provider Leaseweb receives takedown notice from Bollywood
• India expands possibilities to remove/block internet content

Source: TorrentFreak