Guy Reveals Airtel Secretly Inserting JavaScript, Gets Threatened With Jail For Criminal Copyright Infringement

from the copyright-law-at-work dept

criminal

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Last week, an Indian blogger, Thejesh GN, discovered that mobile operator Airtel was injecting javascript into subscribers' browsing sessions, which is both incredibly sketchy and a huge security concern (not to mention raising net neutrality issues on the side). He posted the proof to GitHub and tweeted about it He posted the evidence showing that javascript was being quietly inserted, and that it apparently tried to insert some sort of toolbar That's all super sketchy. But that's just the very beginning of this story. Because days later, Thejesh received the most ridiculous legal threat letter , coming from a lawyer named Ameet Mehta from the law firm Solicis Lex. It claims to be representing an Israeli company, Flash Network, which is apparently responsible for the code injection software... and it claims that by merelythat Airtel was doing these injections, he hadunder the Information Technology Act, 2000.If that sounds familiar, that's because we wrote about that ridiculous law last year, noting that it would technically allow people to be put in jail for merely thinking about infringing someone's copyright.And the Solicis Lex lawyers, to show they're not messing around,on the letter they sent:The crux of the "copyright" claim seems fairly ridiculous:Remember: all Thejesh GN did was. If Flash Network thinks that showing the code that it dumps into each of your browsing sessions is criminal copyright infringement, just about anyone who does a "view source" could be guilty. That's a plainly ridiculous reading of the law.On top of that, the lawyers sent a DMCA notice to GitHub, which caved in andThis is despite GitHub's recent promise not to take things down without first alerting the users in question.Absolutely everything about this isand bad. The initial injections by Airtel/Flash are bad and dangerous. Both companies should be called out for such javascript injections. But, Flash's response to not only threatencopyright takedown/cease and desist claim, but also to allegethat could lead to jail time just adds an insane layer on top of all that. Even arguing that merely posting screenshots of the injected code is civil copyright infringement is crazy. And then issuing a DMCA takedown to GitHub (not to mention GitHub agreeing to take the screenshots down...). All of it is ridiculous and a clear abuse of copyright law to silence someone who revealed Airtel and Flash Network were up to questionable activities.For those who argue that copyright is never used for censorship: explain this story.Of course, it all seems to be backfiring in a big way. Flash may have wanted to hide what they were up to, but now it's getting much, much, much more attention. Maybe, next time, rather than threatening whistleblowers of your bad practices with claims of criminal copyright infringement, Flash and Airtel will think more about their own crappy business practices that put users at risk.

Filed Under: cease and decist, copyright, criminal copyright, dmca takedown, free speech, india, injection, israel, javascript, javascript injection, thejesh gn

Companies: airtel, flash network, github, solicis lex