Online Piracy and Intellectual Property Rights: A Synthesis

In today’s digital age, it’s common to practise engaging in online piracy. The black market sale of a copyrighted work, in whole or in part, for a significantly reduced price is what is meant by the term “piracy.” As a result, the global film business has suffered enormous losses. Copyright Act, 1957 and IT Act, 2000 are only two of the numerous regulations in India that prohibit this type of criminal behaviour. This, obviously, is not good. OTT firms put in a lot of effort and money to create and distribute their content. All of these efforts, however, are being rendered useless by the rising tide of video piracy, raising questions about the long-term sustainability of the OTT industry as a whole. This paper analyses the existing laws which deal with illegal streaming with a comparative analysis with US, UK & India. Films that have been filmed and posted online can alter the nature of the criminal activity and the legal repercussions of such crimes. Finally, jurisdictional difficulties will be addressed when the film’s upload and download originate in separate countries, followed by viable solutions and working models to cope with this menace.