The matter will next be heard on 27 March. Photo: Reuters
New Delhi: Google India Pvt. Ltd on Monday told the Delhi high court it has not earned any revenue from content uploaded on YouTube under a content licence agreement with the Indian government.
This was in response to a question posed by the court on 9 February, whereby they asked Google Inc. and its Indian unit if they made money by hosting content from the information and broadcasting ministry on YouTube to assess if they were in compliance with law.
While Google India Pvt. Ltd. adopted a clear stand of not earning any revenue under its agreement with the government, Google Inc. presented the court with an affidavit which was vague in this regard.
Consequently, the bench comprising of Justices Badar Ahmed Durrez and Sanjeev Sachdeva directed Google Inc. to submit an additional affidavit explaining if they made any money under their agreement with the government.
The court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by former Bharatiya Janata Party leader K.N. Govindacharya, which claims the government’s contracts with social networking sites which led to transfer of intellectual property rights (IPRs) were not in compliance with the law.
Advocate Virag Gupta, counsel for the petitioner, had contended that the contracts formed part of public records and surrendering or allowing foreign companies to use the IPRs arising therein for commercial purposes without payment of any royalty was a violation of Section 43A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which lays down security measures to be followed while dealing with sensitive or personal information.
“It may be seen that Google is earning significant revenue from Indian operations which makes it imperative for the government to have legal agreements with such companies. The current agreements that the government has with some of the foreign companies are not in compliance with legal provisions and lead to surrendering of IP rights,” Govindacharya’s counsel had told the court in an earlier hearing.
The government had earlier initially submitted its contracts with Facebook, YouTube and Whatsapp which were in the nature of standard contracts supported by an affidavit saying that there were “no separate or formal agreements”.
On 27 January, the content licence agreement between the ministry of information and broadcasting and Google Ireland for YouTube was placed on record which showed that a “non-exclusive, limited, worldwide and royalty-free” licence to use any names, logos, trademarks, design or trade name was provided by the government.
The matter will next be heard on 27 March.
[“Source-Livemint”]
