Israel: Telegram must remove and police for infringing content, pay penalties

[Chewy_fox]

An Israeli court ruled in favor of ZIRA, a consortium of rights owners and video distributors, and issued an injunction to the social media service Telegram, which must remove infringing content from its service.  Telegram was said to have become an alternative to download sites that have been shut down.

The injunction, filed in February, settles a suit filed by ZIRA and several other media companies in 2020.  The decision document also identified a number of additional Internet service providers as defendants.

Acccording to one report, while Telegram insisted that it took content down as soon as it received complaints, the plaintiffs thought Telegram was inconsistent in doing so.

Telegram has also been ordered to more closely monitor any group or user using Telegram to upload movies, TV series, music and Hebrew translations without the rights to do so.

Telegram must also pay the equivalent of US$30,000 in damages and US$60,000 in legal expenses.

Why this matters

ZIRA is similar to other media industry groups, like AVIA in Asia/Pacific, MPAA and ACE in the US, and others elsewhere, which advocate against piracy and use their combined leverage to promote the prosecution of copyright infringement.

The plaintiffs in this case were ZIRA, United King Films 1990 Distribution Ltd, DBS Satellite Services, HOT Communication Systems Ltd, and Media Network Limited.

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