It appears that Airtel, one of the popular Internet service providers (ISP) in India, has started blocking several file sharing websites such as Rapidshare, Sendspace and MediaFire.

First reported in theIndia Broadband Forum, this move seems to be driven by the rampant piracy of media files on these websites.

Airtel hasn’t officially confirmed whether these websites have been banned at its own will or it has been ordered by the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) to do so, although a screenshot fromSunny Chahal, one of Airtel Broadband’s users points at the latter.

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Confirming this ban, one of the users of India Broadband Forum who goes by the name “naveen_reloaded”ran Traceroute commandson the connection to these file sharing sites and found that the requests went through flagtel servers in all cases, indicating that Flagtel has something to do with this ban.

We tried accessing these websites on BSNL Broadband and they seem to be working just fine for us at the time of writing and if DoT has reportedly ordered the ban on these file sharing websites, as claimed by Airtel, it should essentially apply to all Indian ISPs.

It must be noted that there are some conflicting reports in the thread mentioned above, where a few users from other ISPs such as BSNL, MTNL and Reliance broadband are reportedly facing the same ban.

That aside, this is not the first time that India hasfacedInternet censorship from ISPs with several Indian ISPs recently blocking Typepad.com, Mobango.com and Clickatell.com without warning in March this year, claiming that it was ordered by DoT to do so, while the latter revealed in anRTIrequest filed byMedianamathat it hadn’t ordered ISPs to block the sites in question.

Update: Airtel has justtweetedthat it has removed the ban and all users can now access the above mentioned file-sharing websites, exactly as they could before.

Although Airtel didn’t specify the reason for the ban, Medianamareportsthat this ban was due to a court order from BIG Pictures, a subsidiary ofReliance Entertainment.

According to this order, BIG Pictures can issue cease and desist notices on all pirates copying and distributing its latest film,Singham, which will be released in local cinemas tomorrow.

Stating that this order is not limited to offline pirated DVD shops and cable operators, and includes ISPs too, Big Pictures VP (Music and Anti Piracy) Sanjay Tandon said:

“A John Doe order is given against unidentified people, because the copyright owner doesn’t know who is going to infringe. We anticipate that certain entities are going to infringe, and the Delhi High Court has granted us a John Doe order.”

He added that the company’s intention was not to ban the entire website, but to restrict the sharing of copyrighted media files on these websites. He said:

“Our only appeal with this order is that you cannot make the film available through your network. It’s a matter for the ISPs to look into, because it becomes their liability.”

Story byVikas SN

Vikas SN is the Indian Editor at The Next Web and is based out of Bangalore, India. He is extremely interested in Indian startups and shiny(show all)Vikas SNis the Indian Editor at The Next Web and is based out of Bangalore, India. He is extremely interested in Indian startups andshiny gadgets. You can follow him onTwitter,Google+or contact him via email at vikas@thenextweb.com

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