Music label T-Series appears to have begun a significant offensive against music streaming sites streaming music, unlicensed. The company informs us that Anil Sharma, the managing director of GNN Show 9 Infotainment, which runs radiomaska.com was arrested in New Delhi for alleged copyright infringement following their complaint; Sharma had been denied bail and sent to two day police remand. Apart from the arrest, equipment used in the infringing broadcasts including hard drives containing the copyrighted works of T-Series was also seized by the officers of the Crime Branch of the Economic Offenses Wing, following an FIR was lodged. This is reminiscent of the arrest of Guruji.com executives last year, which eventually led to Guruji shuttering its music search business. In addition, T-Series has said that they managed to get Dishant.com, a US based streaming site, shut down for copyright infringement, via a DMCA complaint. This doesn't appear to be the case, since we checked Dishant.com is live and still has music available on it. Perhaps only T-Series content has been removed following the DMCA notice. Carrot & Stick This approach is typical of that being adopted by music labels - they try to legitimise sites streaming their music illegally by getting them to buy licenses, and if they refuse, they take a legal route and get them shut down. The incentive here is that they will be allowed to function if they buy the license. In our opinion, publicising these legal initiatives (especially arrests) helps the company spread the word that…
