The MPAA, the trade association of Hollywood's six largest studios, has asked India's telecom regulator TRAI to allow ISPs to block and throttle the piracy of copyrighted content on the Internet. They submitted the comment in response to TRAI's consultation paper on net neutrality, through their Indian arm, the Motion Pictures Distribution Association (MDPA). This filing is consistent with the MPAA's narrow stabs at net neutrality regulation in the US. The MPAA did not respond to a request for comment from MediaNama. What the MPDA wants In its filing, the MPDA has said: ...illegal or unlawful content can and should be treated differently from legal content and, as such, should not be affected by the rules governing net neutrality. It is necessary and proper for certain exceptions to be made for unlawful content. Content that infringes copyright is, by definition, unlawful. We urge that a clear statement be included in any eventual net neutrality regulation that specifies that pirated and infringing content is unlawful and therefore not subject to the normal net neutrality policy of prohibiting content based regulations. [...] as a remedy to address the dissemination of, or unauthorized access to, unlawful content, blocking and throttling are necessary and appropriate measures. Blocking access to infringing sites is not inconsistent with net neutrality. In fact, blocking illegal sites, especially when they originate from outside the country, is often the only effective remedy to prevent access to illegal content in India. TSPs must be able to block sites that link, stream,…
