Mobile phone users in the country will be barred from using film songs from India and other nations in the sub-continent as ringtones or welcome tunes, a Bangladeshi court ruled on Friday. The ruling is likely to affect the 121 million mobile subscribers in the country.
“Import policy bars the import of Indian or sub-continental films to Bangladesh. That is why songs of those (films) can’t be used as welcome tune or ringtone,” said the concerned writ petitioner’s lawyer Mehedi Hasan Chowdhury.
The court issued the order while asking why these songs and tunes provided by mobile operators as Value Added Services (VAS) should not be declared illegal in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, secretaries of culture, information, home and law ministries, BTRC chairman and all mobile operators in the country were also asked by the court to reply within four weeks.
Music Industries Owners Association President AKM Arifur Rahman and General Secretary SK Shahed Ali had filed the petition in June.
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