Streaming majors Netflix, Amazon and Disney held a private meeting on Friday to discuss potential legal and other methods to block India’s new tobacco warning guidelines, amid concerns they will have to edit millions of hours of existing content.
The executives of the three global streaming platforms and Viacom18’s Jio Cinema met in a closed-door meeting. According to Netflix, the new guidelines will affect customer experience and force production houses to block their content in India, reported Reuters.
As per the Reuters report, the executives discussed ways of possible legal challenges to insist that other ministries such as the Ministry of IT and Information and Broadcasting have powers over streaming giants, not the health ministry.
The new guidelines are the latest concern for streaming companies in India, which is a highly growing market.
On 31 May, the health ministry directed streaming platforms should within three months insert static health warnings during smoking scenes. In addition, the ministry wants at least 50 seconds of anti-tobacco disclaimers, including an audio-visual, at the beginning and in the middle of each program.
However, under the law, all drinking and smoking scenes in movies in India’s theatres and on TV require mandatory health warnings but there were no rules for streaming platforms.
During the 2 June meeting, Netflix and other platforms pointed out that there was no way content can be edited in three months, adding the industry decided to consult lawyers and write letters in protest, reported Reuters.
According to filmmaker Dylan Mohan Gray, the new rules amount to harassment, murder war and extremely violent crime scenes were not regulated similarly.
"Smoking, which though certainly a serious public health problem, is both legal and a massive source of government revenue in this country," he said.
