The Indian government has enacted the Information Technology Act, 2000 (ITA) and updated India's penal laws to promote e-commerce, encourage business process outsourcing and effectively deal with the growing menace of cyber crime, data theft and other information technology-related delinquencies.
Cyber-squatting
Cyber-squatting is the deliberate registration of a well-known brand as an internet domain name by a person who is neither the owner nor has any inherent rights to the brand, with the intention to sell the domain name to the owner of the well-known brand to take unfair advantage of the reputation attached with such name.
India's courts have treated internet domain names as trademarks and protected their misuse under provisions of the Trade Marks Act, 1999.
In the case Yahoo vs Akash Arora [78 (1999) DLT 285], the Delhi High Court held that the trademark law applies with equal force to the internet. Supplementing this judgement, the Bombay High Court in Rediff Communications vs Cyberbooth [1999 (4) Bom LR 278] ruled against Cybertooth for adopting the domain name Radiff.com, which is similar to the plaintiff's well-known website Rediff.com. The court held that where bad-faith intent to cause deception is established, further inquiry over likelihood of confusion is unnecessary.
Piracy and data theft
The Copyright Act, 1957 (CA57) treats computer programmes, tables and compilations (including computer databases) as literary works and prohibits their reproduction, publication and commercial use by unauthorized persons. The copyright for such works continues for 60 years after the death of the author.
The CA57 entitles the owner of proprietary data to prevent infringement of its copyright, to stop the misuse and dissemination of such data, and to claim damages and loss of profits caused by the sale of infringing copies of such data. Infringement of a copyright conferred by the CA57 is punishable by imprisonment of up to three years and/or a fine of up to Rs.200,000 (US$4,600).
In the case Microsoft Corporation vs Yogesh Papat [118 (2005) DLT 580], the Delhi High Court viewed the defendant's act of loading pirated versions of the plaintiff's software onto computers and selling them to consumers as infringement of the plaintiff's copyrights and trademarks.
Theft and misappropriation of data are criminal offences and are actionable under provisions of the Penal Code, 1860.
Tampering with computers
The ITA has made various offences relating to the unauthorized use of computer networks and electronically-available information punishable with fines of up to Rs.200,000 and/or imprisonment of up to three years.
The punishment for transmitting obscene material in electronic form is five years' imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs.100,000, with every subsequent conviction punishable with 10 years' imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs.200,000.
Spam mail and cyber-stalking
Spam mail can be defined as unsolicited commercial emails sent to various parties when there is no prior relationship between the parties concerned and the recipient has not explicitly consented to receiving the communications.
There is no remedy under the ITA for spam mail. However, in a recent case in which Tata Sons and its subsidiary Panatone Finwest filed a suit against McCoy Infosystems for transmission of spam mail, the Delhi High Court held that in the absence of statutory protection to prevent spam mail, the traditional law of tort and principles of trespass and nuisance apply.
Looking ahead
As India has benefited from the information technology revolution, it is imperative for the government to constantly refine India's laws to effectively and expeditiously deal with emerging cyber-crime issues. This will encourage more multinational corporations to outsource sensitive and high-end business processing work to India.
Pallavi Roy Chowdhury, an associate at Titus & Co, assisted Diljeet Titus with this article.