Mumbai Police has set up a Social Media lab, along with team of cyber experts, and with the help of ISPs, is conducting random checks on content that is being downloaded from certain sites, including torrents, and especially Internet users with large data downloads, reports DNA, quoting Himanshu Roy, Joint Commissioner (Crime), Mumbai Police. As per the report, on the basis of a complaint from a copyrights holder, the police warned and let off an IT professional who was using his office computer (and we assume, connection) to download torrents. The company emailed its employees to stay off torrent sites. Copyright owners have, in the past, got websites blocked, hired people to conduct likely-to-be-illegal DDoS attacks, and got all-encompassing John Doe Orders to get anything they want blocked. Our Take While it quotes a "cyber security expert" who says that the Copyright Act, the IPC or section 66 of India's IT Act can be used in this case, it doesn't question why the person was let off with a warning. That seems rather arbitrary, because if a complaint has been filed, surely the decision on whether to let the person go or not should be left to the Judiciary, not the Police. Or does the Police usually go warning people and letting them go after copyright owners file a complaint? The report doesn't mention the complainant, the user, the company involved, the content being downloaded or the torrent site. Is this tapping of citizens' Internet connections legal? If you look at the…
