Adult OTT Content Creators, Artistes Come Together To Form National Association In Mumbai

MUMBAI: To avoid harassment by law enforcement agencies and to create a level-playing field for all players, several adult content creators for OTT (Over The Top) platforms in India have come together to form an association.

Small OTT (Over The Top) producers, film makers, directors actors and allied workers today announced their own nationwide association to ‘protect the interests of the industry’ and to ensure that the laws of the land are properly interpreted and not misused.

Named as OTT Film Makers, Artistes & Allied Workers Forum (OFAAWF), the group consisting of more than 90 persons associated with the small OTT industry which caters to private APPs and even individual content providers came together at a meeting held at Oshiwara in suburban Mumbai.

The meeting held on Saturday was attended by about 46 persons – all connected or related to the industry including small OTT producers, directors, actors, cameramen, videographers and co-ordinators.

This follows the announcement of Guidelines and Rules by the Government of India governing the OTT and Digital Space as well as the recent crackdown by the Mumbai police on various OTT producers like Tv actress Gehana Vasisth who was arrested by the Mumbai police for creating content which was classified as pornography by the law enforcement agencies.

Amit Khare, Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Friday said that the ministry has set three broad objectives to regulate Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms and digital media.

Khare further said: “We understand the types of media are different amongst each other completely. The print is different from Television, TV is different from films and films are different from web series. We cannot have the same criteria all over but there should be some sort of similarity in the goal post.”

“What was announced yesterday is a soft touch, self-regulatory mechanism with minimal interference of the government,” Khare added. On Thursday, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar and Ravi Shankar Prasad announced the new policies for the OTT platform and digital media.

According to an Indian Express report, the Centre Thursday notified new guidelines for intermediaries in “soft touch oversight” rules, saying these were needed to hold social media and other companies accountable for “misuse and abuse”.

These will require Big Tech platforms to set up stronger grievance redressal mechanisms, and appoint executives to coordinate with law enforcement in India.

For social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc, the guidelines essentially remove the “safe harbour” provided to these companies — it limited their liability over content that users posted on their platforms — if the platforms do not comply with due diligence norms.

The rules also call for a three-tier regulation mechanism for over-the-top (OTT) platforms like Netflix, YouTube, etc and require them to self-classify their content into five categories based on age suitability.

The government’s move comes amid a flurry of activity across geographies over the last 12 months to frame new regulations aimed at policing Big Tech, which may force some of the world’s most valuable companies to fundamentally recalibrate their business models in order to stay in line with these regulations.

While all the rules have been framed and notified under the existing Information Technology (IT) Act, the administrative powers for regulation of OTT and digital news sharing platforms shall be under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B).

The new guidelines place more onus on nearly all such companies which provide a platform to host, share, view or modify content, while also including for the first time, entities which are in the business of either creating or distributing news online under the ambit of an online intermediary.

Among the first, the government has made social media intermediaries more liable for the content being shared on their platform by following due diligence, failing which the “safe harbour provisions” will not be applicable to them.

The rules for OTT platforms also follow a “soft-touch self-regulatory architecture” and call for online digital news disseminating agencies to self-categorize their content into one of the five age-based broad categories.

“The publisher of online curated content shall prominently display the classification rating specific to each content or programme together with a content descriptor informing the user about the nature of the content, and advising on viewer description (if applicable) at the beginning of every programme, enabling the user to make an informed decision prior to watching the programme,” Information & Broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar said.

A self-regulatory body, headed either by a retired Supreme Court or High Court judge or an independent eminent person, shall also be formed, which will ensure the compliance of ethics and rules by online digital news platforms.

The ministry shall, in due course of time, “formulate an oversight mechanism. It shall publish a charter for self-regulating bodies, including Codes of Practices. It shall establish an Inter-Departmental Committee for hearing grievances”.