2023-06-03 06:01:55
Streaming giants Netflix, Amazon and Disney on Friday explored a potential legal way out and other ways to snag new smoking warning rules in India, amid fears they would need to edit millions of hours of content already posted online, sources cited by Archyde.com said.
This is the latest headache for broadcasting giants in India, one of the world’s fastest growing markets, and these companies often face lawsuits and complaints from the police over content that sometimes harms religious sentiments.
As part of India’s anti-smoking campaign, the health ministry this week ordered broadcasters within three months to insert consistent health warnings during smoking scenes. in the center of each programme.
Harm the customer experience
In the first signs of a real crisis, the executives of the three global broadcasters and India’s Viacom, which runs the billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s “Gocinema” app, held a closed meeting as Netflix said the rules would hurt customer experience and push production companies to block its content in India, according to two people familiar with the matter. discussions.
The executives also discussed possible legal recourse avenues in India to ensure that other ministries – information technology, information and broadcasting – have responsibilities over the broadcast giants and not the health ministry, said one of the sources.
The companies and India’s health ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Indeed, by law all smoking and drinking scenes in films in cinemas and television in India require health warnings, but so far there are no regulations for the streaming giants whose content is becoming increasingly popular.
In 2013, Woody Allen stopped showing Blue Jasmine in India following learning that mandatory anti-smoking warnings would be included in smoking scenes.
The second source said – during Friday’s meeting – Amazon and other companies made it clear that films cannot be re-edited within three months, adding that the companies decided to consult lawyers and write letters of protest.
Documentary director Dylan Mohan Gray said the new Indian rules amounted to “harassment”, adding that murder, war and ultra-violent crime scenes were not regulated in the same way.
“Smoking – which is certainly a serious public health problem – is both a legal source and an enormous source of government revenue in this country,” Gray said.
Activists welcomed the new rules to combat smoking in India, the world’s second largest tobacco producer, which kills 1.3 million people each year in the country.
(Archyde.com)
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