Nearly 400 Internet service providers in India have been ordered to block over 100 music sites by the Calcutta High Court.
The Indian Music Industry (IMI) trade group (basically India’s version of the RIAA), which is made up of 142 music companies, has been pushing for such an order, and has now apparently gotten its wish. According to MeidaNama, a publication that covers digital media in India, ISPs were given 36 hours to block the sites.
The whole thing is being compared to potential effects of SOPA-like legislation. According to TorrentFreak, ISPs are being ordered to block the sites by way of DNS and IP address blocking, becked up with Deep Packet Inspection, which is a process by which data must pass inspection for non-compliance.
Last month, an Indian court ordered 21 sites to block content that might offend certain religious groups. In fact, more recent reports indicate Facebook and Google executives could face jail time for failing to censor offensive content. Last week, Facebook banned some pages also deemed offensive to some in India.