Blogs
Putting a Lid on Royalty Outflows — How the RBI can Help Reduce India's IP Costs
- June 17, 2011
While entrepreneurs, IP rights-holders and everyone else who has a stake continue to voice their opinions on the appropriate shape that the Indian IP regime ought to take, they tend to narrow their discussions to the language of substantive IP laws. However, there are regulations that cannot be found in the Patent Act, Copyright Act or Trademarks Act which nevertheless have an impact on how much one is paying for intellectual property. Paying attention to these external factors might just provide a simple solution to your IP woes.
Read more →Comments to the Ministry on WIPO Broadcast Treaty (March 2011)
- March 21, 2011
As a follow up to a stakeholder meeting called by the MHRD on the WIPO Broadcast Treaty, CIS provided written comments on the April 2007 Non-Paper of the WIPO Broadcast Treaty, emphasising the need for a signal-based approach to be taken on the Broadcast Treaty, and making it clear that India should continue to oppose the creation of new rights for webcasters.
Read more →Pirates, Plagiarisers, Publishers
- March 09, 2011
This article attempts to rescue not by denying the charges of plagiarism, but by charting an alternative trajectory of plagiarism so that each successive instance does not amplify our sense of embarrassment and crisis in the academy. The article by Prashant Iyengar was published in the Economic & Political Weekly, February 26, 2011, Vol XLVI No 9.
Read more →Thomas Abraham's Rebuttal on Parallel Importation
- February 10, 2011
We engaged in an e-mail conversation with Thomas Abraham, the managing director of Hachette India, on the issue of parallel importation of books into India. We thought it would be in the public interest to publish a substantive part of that conversation. In this post he points at great length how our arguments are faulty. While we still believe that he doesn't succeed, we hope this will clarify matters a bit.
Read more →Indian Law and "Parallel Exports"
- February 01, 2011
Recently, a lawyer for the publishing industry made the claim that allowing for parallel importation would legally allow for the exports of low-priced edition. Here we present a legal rebuttal of that claim.
Read more →Why Parallel Importation of Books Should Be Allowed
- January 25, 2011
There has been much controversy lately with some publishers trying to stop the government from amending s.2(m) of the Indian Copyright Act, clarifying that a parallel import will not be seen as an "infringing copy". This blog post argues that the government should, keeping in mind the larger picture, still go ahead and legalise parallel imports.
Read more →New Release of IPR Chapter of India-EU Free Trade Agreement
- January 12, 2011
A draft of the IPR chapter of the EU-India FTA, made publicly available now for the first time, provides insight into India's response in July 2010 to several EU proposals on intellectual property protection and enforcement.
Read more →Problems Remain with Standing Committee's Report on Copyright Amendments
- December 14, 2010
The Rajya Sabha Standing Committee on Human Resource Development (under which ministry copyright falls) recently tabled their report on the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010 before Parliament. There is much to be applauded in the report, including the progressive stand that the Committee has taken on the issue of providing access by persons with disabilities. This post, however, will concern itself with highlighting some of the problems with that report, along with some very important considerations that got missed out of the entire amendment debate.
Read more →Statement of CIS on the Work of the Committee in the 21st SCCR
- November 23, 2010
The twenty-first session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights was held in Geneva from 8 to 12 November 2010. Nirmita Narasimhan attended the conference and represented the Centre for Internet and Society.
Read more →We’ve All Got Some Baggage
- November 13, 2010
America’s newest trade agreement is not going to kill only iPods. The article appeared in the Tehelka Magazine Vol 7, Issue 45, Dated November 13, 2010
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