"There has to be some regulation, but we cannot have something in this country which allows VoD providers to transcend the boundaries of regulation", a participant at the discussion on online content regulation, organised by Centre for Communications Governance at the National Law Univeristy, Delhi, on the 9th of August 2019, said. The discussion, held under Chatham House Rule (hence we can report the comments but not attribute) ranged from the economics of the content business, to its regulation, the rationale behind a self regulatory code, and some future-gazing with the potential for a converged regulator. What struck me, though, was the point that regulation has an impact on an industry, in terms of the cost of doing business - that overarching regulations on traditional media businesses have harmed the industry - and is there a scope for de-regulation of the media business, instead of a move to bring everyone down to the most highly regulated level? Level playing field issues featured extensively in the discussions. Our notes from the discussion: How are VoD providers are regulated? They are not intermediaries: "VoD providers are not intermediaries, and do not fall under the IT Act for intermediaries. You will see hybrid types of platforms, which will have certain elements of Netflix and certain elements of youtube. By itself it is not an intermediary. Only the content class where they have comments or user uploads, will be under intermediary. All existing content laws apply to content platforms." ..."On the baazee.com judgment, those…
