Delhi High Court: YouTube obliged not to host videos violating law

The Delhi high court has said that video-sharing website YouTube was obliged not to host any content which violates the laws currently in force.

The ruling comes after a plea by Tata Sky, seeking removal of videos from YouTube on how to crack the encryption of set top boxes of the company.

“In terms of Rule 3(1)(e) of the Information Technology Intermedia-ries Guidelines (ITIG) , YouTube is obliged not to host content that violates any law for the time being in force,” Justice S. Muralidhar said.

The court also said that in cases where YouTube would be required to act immediately, it should not insist upon the complainant to demonstrate that the complaint falls in the categories identified by it for taking action.

The court had earlier, on August 27 last year, passed an interim order directing the video-sharing website to remove the content objected to by Tata Sky.

YouTube, on August 10 this year, submitted it has complied with the direction of the court and has removed the URLs of the videos.

It told the court that had Tata Sky not been unclear about the kind of violation that had taken place, YouTube may have acted even more promptly.