Netflix, Disney, Amazon to challenge India's tobacco rules for streaming

Streaming giants Netflix, Amazon and Disney are reportedly mulling a ways to challenge India's new tobacco warning rules. The development comes in response to India's new tobacco warning rules and has sparked fears that streaming companies will need to edit millions of hours of existing web content.

Earlier this week the Health Ministry had ordered streaming platforms to insert static health warnings during smoking scenes within three months. The Centre has also called for at least 50 seconds of anti-tobacco disclaimers - including an audio-visual - at the start and in the middle of each program.

According to a Reuters report, executives of the three global streaming companies, and India's Viacom18 held a closed-door meeting on Friday. Sources said that executives had also also discussed ways of a possible legal challenge to assert that other ministries - IT and information & broadcasting - have powers over streaming giants.

More to come…