SC To Hear Plea For Arrangement With YouTube To Safeguard Copyright Of Live-Streamed Proceedings

The Supreme Court recently scheduled to hear a plea on Monday seeking direction for a special arrangement with YouTube for safeguarding the copyright of its live-streamed proceedings according to a 2018 judgment.

According to the April 10 cause list that was uploaded on the apex court’s website, a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justices PS Narasimha & JB Pardiwala will hear the plea.

While hearing the matter on January 2, the Supreme Court observed that it was very easy to criticize someone or throw a stone at somebody after a petitioner contended that the court’s registry hasn’t followed the directions in the 2018 verdict on live-streaming of the proceedings.

The bench asked advocate Virag Gupta, appearing for former RSS ideologue KN Govindacharya, what modalities can be followed for live-streaming at a time when the National Informatics Centre (NIC) stated that it doesn’t have the sufficient technical infrastructure to live-stream court proceedings without 3rd party applications.

In its January 2 order, the bench referred to an affidavit filed on behalf of the secretary general of the apex court in the matter.

The affidavit stated that the full court of the apex court took the decision in a meeting held on September 20 last year to start live-streaming of proceedings before the constitution benches.

The affidavit stated that “In compliance thereof, a decision was taken by the competent authority directing the registry through the computer cell to work in close coordination with the National Informatics Centre (NIC), video-conferencing (VC) division to proceed with live-streaming on the NIC’s YouTube channel with effect from September 27, 2022.”

Further, “It is submitted that the experience and knowledge that would be gained while live-streaming the court proceedings before the constitution benches would eventually help in further improving the system and adopting the same for other court proceedings, as and when so decided.”

The affidavit stated that due to technical limitations, the secretary general of the apex court is constrained to avail the facilities of 3rd parties to ensure compliance with the directions of the top court in the judgment, the decision of the full court and to uphold the principle of the open courts.

The bench stated in its order that, “The above extract (of the affidavit) indicates that a temporary arrangement has been put into place in view of the decision in Swapnil Tripathi vs Supreme Court of India and in order to uphold the principle of open courts. Since the affidavit of the first respondent (secretary general) states that efforts are being adopted for a self-contained and self-reliant live-streaming platform, list the petition on April 10, 2023.”

Further, it stated that an updated report be filed by the registry in the meantime.

On October 17 last year, the top court agreed to hear Govindacharya’s plea seeking a direction for a special arrangement with YouTube for safeguarding copyright over the court’s live-streamed proceedings as held in the 2018 judgment.

Govindacharya has contended that the live-streaming of the Supreme Court’s proceedings has to be done in accordance with the judgment that said the copyright over live-streamed proceedings can’t be surrendered and the data can neither be monetized nor be used commercially by a platform such as YouTube in the present case.