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Wes Sayeed
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I'll tackle the jurisdiction part of your question since none of the other answers here address it.

You are within India's jurisdiction, so India's law would apply to you regardless of where the site(s) are hosted from. If what you're doing were illegal in India (and the company who owns the copyright were aggrieved enough to make a case out of it), they would have to ask your government for permission to sue you, which isn't going to happen for something like what you described.

Now, regarding the technicals...

Bypassing copy protection mechanisms to access information for which you do not have a license would fall under anti-curcumvention laws. In the US, that would be the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the Copyright Directive in the EU.

Anti-curcumvention laws make it illegal to circumvent any "technological measure" that controls access to a copyrighted work. Those laws are highly highly controversial because "any technological measure" is vague and overly broad in scope. Obviously, cracking an encryption key or exploiting an authentication bug qualifies. But removing a simple CSS tag?? That'd be like holding an envelope up to a light bulb and calling it mail fraud. It's the digital equivalent of removing a piece of masking tape.

It's hard to see how that could be considered a technological measure under the law. It certainly does not fit within the additional language those laws use to describe examples of technological measures.

Also an interesting footnote...

Both the US and EU laws are implementations of the WIPO Copyright Treaty. India is NOT a signatory to that treaty.

I'll tackle the jurisdiction part of your question since none of the other answers here address it.

You are within India's jurisdiction, so India's law would apply to you regardless of where the site(s) are hosted from. If what you're doing were illegal in India (and the company who owns the copyright were aggrieved enough to make a case out of it), they would have to ask your government for permission to sue you, which isn't going to happen for something like what you described.

Now, regarding the technicals...

Bypassing copy protection mechanisms to access information for which you do not have a license would fall under anti-curcumvention laws. In the US, that would be the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the Copyright Directive in the EU.

Anti-curcumvention laws make it illegal to circumvent any "technological measure" that controls access to a copyrighted work. Those laws are highly highly because "any technological measure" is vague and overly broad in scope. Obviously, cracking an encryption key or exploiting an authentication bug qualifies. But removing a simple CSS tag?? That'd be like holding an envelope up to a light bulb and calling it mail fraud. It's the digital equivalent of removing a piece of masking tape.

It's hard to see how that could be considered a technological measure under the law. It certainly does not fit within the additional language those laws use to describe examples of technological measures.

Also an interesting footnote...

Both the US and EU laws are implementations of the WIPO Copyright Treaty. India is NOT a signatory to that treaty.

I'll tackle the jurisdiction part of your question since none of the other answers here address it.

You are within India's jurisdiction, so India's law would apply to you regardless of where the site(s) are hosted from. If what you're doing were illegal in India (and the company who owns the copyright were aggrieved enough to make a case out of it), they would have to ask your government for permission to sue you, which isn't going to happen for something like what you described.

Now, regarding the technicals...

Bypassing copy protection mechanisms to access information for which you do not have a license would fall under anti-curcumvention laws. In the US, that would be the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the Copyright Directive in the EU.

Anti-curcumvention laws make it illegal to circumvent any "technological measure" that controls access to a copyrighted work. Those laws are highly controversial because "any technological measure" is vague and overly broad in scope. Obviously, cracking an encryption key or exploiting an authentication bug qualifies. But removing a simple CSS tag?? That'd be like holding an envelope up to a light bulb and calling it mail fraud. It's the digital equivalent of removing a piece of masking tape.

It's hard to see how that could be considered a technological measure under the law. It certainly does not fit within the additional language those laws use to describe examples of technological measures.

Also an interesting footnote...

Both the US and EU laws are implementations of the WIPO Copyright Treaty. India is NOT a signatory to that treaty.

Source Link
Wes Sayeed
  • 1.1k
  • 8
  • 16

I'll tackle the jurisdiction part of your question since none of the other answers here address it.

You are within India's jurisdiction, so India's law would apply to you regardless of where the site(s) are hosted from. If what you're doing were illegal in India (and the company who owns the copyright were aggrieved enough to make a case out of it), they would have to ask your government for permission to sue you, which isn't going to happen for something like what you described.

Now, regarding the technicals...

Bypassing copy protection mechanisms to access information for which you do not have a license would fall under anti-curcumvention laws. In the US, that would be the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the Copyright Directive in the EU.

Anti-curcumvention laws make it illegal to circumvent any "technological measure" that controls access to a copyrighted work. Those laws are highly highly because "any technological measure" is vague and overly broad in scope. Obviously, cracking an encryption key or exploiting an authentication bug qualifies. But removing a simple CSS tag?? That'd be like holding an envelope up to a light bulb and calling it mail fraud. It's the digital equivalent of removing a piece of masking tape.

It's hard to see how that could be considered a technological measure under the law. It certainly does not fit within the additional language those laws use to describe examples of technological measures.

Also an interesting footnote...

Both the US and EU laws are implementations of the WIPO Copyright Treaty. India is NOT a signatory to that treaty.