New Delhi: Prasar Bharati said on October 1 (Sunday) that it does not make copyright claims on public service content, including parliamentary proceedings. This statement came in response to allegations that it had sent copyright infringement notices to YouTubers regarding parliamentary proceedings.

Gurdeep Singh Sappal, a former chief executive officer/editor of the Rajya Sabha TV, raised the issue and argued that parliamentary proceedings are national assets of historical value and should be freely accessible, not subject to copyright.

“Prasar Bharti has sent notices to YouTubers invoking copyright on it. This is wrong. Parliamentary proceedings are national assets of historical value. They are not a commercial product that can be used for profiteering under the garb of copyright. In fact, any attempt to limit the access to parliamentary proceedings amounts to censorship and is an infringement of the rights of citizens (to) be informed of the happenings in the Parliament,” said Sappal.

“Any part of parliamentary debate can only be restricted from public access by a specific order of the Chair only, using the powers vested in them to expunge parts of proceedings. When I had started RSTV, this issue was deliberated upon by the Content Advisory Committee of the Rajya Sabha. It was the unanimous decision that parliamentary proceedings have to be provided to anyone free of cost, to be used freely,” he said.

However, Prasar Bharati officials emphasised that they had never issued such copyright notices, and their public service-related content is copyright-free.

The officials told The Hindu that sometimes copyright violation notices might be automatically generated due to platform algorithms, but they encourage affected individuals to contest such notices to resolve the issue promptly.

But an official statement on this matter has not been released yet.

Following the report, Sappal posted on X (formerly Twitter): "This statement attributed to Prasar Bharti officials would have been a welcome one, if only it were an official statement."

"If the intent of Prasar Bharti is indeed not to claim copyright over the usage of Parliamentary proceedings, then it must issue an official statement clarifying it. Such a statement can then be used by social media content creators for their official reply to the notices."

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