A group of rights holders in Portugal has succeeded in obtaining a court order, to block 17 piracy channels on Telegram. The 17 channels are just mentioned by their names and are having over 10 million subscribers in total.
These channels are seen distributing copyrighted material without permission, and with Telegram’s support of hiding the identity of distributors, rights holders aren’t satisfied in tracking them.
Blocking Telegram Channels
Apart from personal messaging, Telegram provides a wide broadcasting facility called Channels with unlimited subscribers, making it one of the best platforms for reaching an audience. While this is mostly used for legitimate purposes, some are used for distributing pirated content.
And these piracy channels have grown over time, pushing Telegram to introduce better rules and actions for taking down. Yet, it’s often targeted by court orders for an immediate response, like the one coming from Visapress – a coalition of newspapers, magazines,s and movie studios in Portugal.
As per reports, Visapress has successfully obtained an injunction order from the Intellectual Property Court in Lisbon, Portugal, to block about 17 piracy channels in Telegram. These channels are seen having a total subscriber count of more than 10 million, making the rights holders worry.
Thus, they made the judge believe an injunction order is deserved, even though it may not help much. Passing the requesting order, the court statement read
“it is an adequate and proportionate means to at least try to ensure respect for intellectual property rights, leading to the deterrence of sharing and availability of such contents.”
The judge, pirate channel owners, and even the rights holders know that this injunction for blocking isn’t much effective, but at least driving them away slightly should be done to discourage them.
Few of the Telegram channels noted in court order have already changed names, and are redirecting subscribers to a new one, while some have shut down.
