O.T.T. Regulation In India: The Challenges Faced By Today’s Judiciary
- IJLLR Journal
- Jul 13, 2025
- 2 min read
Aadithya Aravindh, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University
Nandana Menon, Law Centre II - Faculty of Law, Delhi University
Introduction
The market of Over the Top (OTT) India was opened in 2008 when the entry of ‘BIGFlix’, a platform launched by the Reliance Entertainment Group which provided Pay-per-view services for Bollywood Movies. The market was later expanded by the entry of several other players such as “nexGTV” which streamed Live Television Channels to your Mobile Phone and the big three, i.e., Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ Hotstar (“JioHotstar”). At present India has a booming OTT Market with 57 Companies offering a varied and diversified content base to a wide range of consumers from the average smartphone user to the Home Smart TV consumer.
India is one of the more liberal countries when it comes to OTT content regulation. The primary reason for this is that the jurisprudence with regards to regulation of OTT Content is still at its natal stages as far as India is concerned.
Understanding Regulators
The Indian Legal System is currently in the process of deciding the precise adjudicating authority with regards to OTT Content Regulation. This is due to the fact that the specifics of Broadcasters are not yet set out by any legislation or executive decree. At present, there is no defined Regulator with regards to OTT contents. As of this moment, the preliminary governing body with regards to OTT Content is the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting which has, at present, provided for a placeholder legislation titled the “Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021”. These rules provide for a rather broad framework governing Digital Content Creators and Online Gaming Platforms along with a regulatory requirement to provide for Greivance Redressal Mechanisms for the purposes of addressing consumer disputes. On rare occasions, there have been Parliamentary Panels which have issued advisories for content regulation. However, there is no provision with regards to content regulation in terms of obscenity or censorship of the content so released online.
