MIB's Telegram piracy notice triggers legal questions over executive powers

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting's (MIB) latest notice to Telegram has reignited debate over the extent to which digital platforms can be held responsible for copyright infringement by users. While the government's objective of tackling rampant online piracy has found broad support across the media and entertainment industry, legal experts argue that several aspects of the notice appear to stretch existing intermediary liability standards under Indian law.

Issued on July 4, the four-page notice accuses Telegram of allowing widespread circulation of pirated films and OTT content through public channels, mirror groups, bots and successor channels despite repeated government interventions. It directs the messaging platform to establish stronger systems to detect, report, disable and remove infringing content, prevent repeat uploads, act against repeat infringers, preserve evidence, coordinate with law enforcement and submit an Action Taken Report within 15 days.

While few dispute the need to curb online piracy—which the notice describes as causing "serious economic harm" to India's creative economy—the government's approach has drawn criticism for potentially stretching both the law and the limits of executive authority.

Beyond notice-and-takedown

The ministry argues that Telegram's existing practice of disabling individual channels after complaints is insufficient because identical content quickly resurfaces through mirror channels, successor groups and bots.

Calling the platform's approach "purely reactive," the ministry says Telegram has failed to take "effective, systemic, or platform-wide action" despite repeated notices regarding copyright infringement.

Accordingly, the government has directed Telegram not only to remove reported content but also to prevent the re-uploading, re-sharing and reappearance of "substantially identical" infringing material and take action against repeat infringers, including channels, groups, administrators, bots and associated entities.

Legal experts say these requirements move well beyond conventional notice-and-takedown obligations and begin resembling proactive content monitoring.

"This is a significant shift in how the government appears to interpret intermediary due diligence," said a technology lawyer who requested anonymity due to ongoing engagements with multiple online platforms. "The notice effectively expects Telegram to stop future infringement before it occurs. That is very different from responding to specific complaints."

Questions over MIB's legal authority

Several lawyers also questioned whether the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is the appropriate authority to issue such directions in the first place.

Under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, obligations applicable to intermediaries are contained in Part II of the Rules, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). MIB primarily administers Part III, which governs publishers of online curated content and digital news publishers.

Telegram, however, operates as a messaging intermediary rather than an OTT platform or digital news publisher.

"The notice raises a threshold question," another legal expert said on condition of anonymity. "Even before examining the obligations themselves, one has to ask whether MIB possesses the statutory authority to direct a messaging intermediary to redesign its moderation systems."

The expert added that while the notice invokes Section 79 of the Information Technology Act and the IT Rules, it does not clearly explain the legal provision empowering MIB itself to issue such operational directions.

Digital rights advocates have similarly argued that executive directions requiring intermediaries to build platform-level filtering systems risk creating regulatory obligations without explicit legislative backing.

Copyright enforcement or executive overreach?

The notice frames online piracy as a threat to India's creative economy and warns that continued availability of infringing content could be treated as evidence that Telegram has failed to satisfy its due diligence obligations, potentially jeopardising its safe harbour protections under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act.

Some experts, however, caution against shifting copyright enforcement away from rights holders and courts.

"Copyright remains a private legal right," said one intellectual property lawyer familiar with intermediary litigation. "Rights holders already have access to civil remedies, including dynamic injunctions, John Doe orders and website-blocking orders. The concern is whether executive agencies can effectively create new compliance obligations through administrative notices."

The lawyer added that expanding intermediary liability through executive action, rather than legislation or judicial interpretation, risks creating legal uncertainty for online platforms.

Technical hurdles

The notice's requirement that Telegram prevent the re-uploading or reappearance of substantially identical infringing content has also prompted questions about technical feasibility.

Unlike public video-hosting services, Telegram combines public channels with encrypted communications and user-controlled groups where files are routinely forwarded, renamed, compressed and re-encoded.

A cybersecurity researcher familiar with content moderation systems said building an effective fingerprinting system for such an environment would be extremely challenging.

"People often point to YouTube's Content ID as the benchmark, but that system reportedly required well over a hundred million dollars in investment and years of engineering effort. Even then, it identifies matching files—it doesn't determine ownership, licensing or whether a use falls under exceptions like fair dealing."

The researcher added that fingerprinting technologies struggle when files are modified, while encrypted communications cannot be scanned without fundamentally compromising encryption itself.

"What can realistically be implemented within fifteen days is unlikely to be a sophisticated copyright detection system," the researcher said. "The greater risk is deployment of overly broad filters that remove lawful material simply because platforms want to minimise regulatory exposure."

A precedent beyond piracy

Few in the legal community dispute that piracy remains a serious problem for India's film and streaming industries, particularly given the rapid creation of mirror channels and repeat infringing networks.

The debate instead centres on whether the government's solution could establish a much broader precedent.

If the ministry's interpretation of due diligence becomes the norm, experts say similar expectations could eventually extend to other messaging services, social media platforms and user-generated content services.

As Telegram prepares its response within the 15-day deadline, the notice is likely to become an important test of how far Indian regulators can expand intermediary responsibilities through executive action—and whether courts will ultimately endorse that approach.