The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
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Gandhi, Freedom, and the Dilemmas of Copyright
https://cis-india.org/a2k/gandhi-freedom-and-copyright
<b>To commemorate Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary, the Centre for Internet and Society cordially invites you to a talk by Prof. Shyamkrishna Balganesh of the University of Pennsylvania on Gandhi, Freedom, and the Dilemmas of Copyright on 30 January 2012 at 6.00 p.m.
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<p>When the copyright on Rabindranath Tagore's writings were to expire, his estate sought (and got) an extension in copyright term. But when the copyright on Mahatma Gandhi's writings were to expire, the trustees did not seek such an extension, in deference to Gandhi's views on copyright. On the cover of the first English edition of the Hind Swaraj, it states: "No Rights Reserved". Was Gandhi a Wikipedian at heart, and a prophet who foresaw the 'copyright wars' and had his own visions of how far free culture and free knowledge activism could and could not go?</p>
<h3>Description<br /></h3>
<p>Central to modern discussions of copyright law is the conflict between copyright’s role as a market-based mechanism of cultural production and its detrimental effects on access to knowledge, free speech, and cultural creativity. So divisive is this debate in the world of copyright law today that some have characterized it as the ongoing “copyright wars”. In January 2009, when copyright in all of Gandhi’s works expired, to the absolute surprise of many, the Navjivan Trust,to whom Gandhi had transferred the copyright in his works, chose not to seek a statutory extension of copyright.</p>
<p>The Trust’s firm decision rested in large part on Gandhi’s unease with copyright law, and his reluctant acceptance of its benefits. Gandhi’s opinions on copyright law reveal a rather concerted attempt to grapple with the innumerable public and private trade-offs that are central to the institution, which are today seen as the very basis of the copyright wars. Much like Gandhi’s views on other issues, they reveal a pragmatism, nuance, and creative engagement, which likely emanate from Gandhi’s training as a lawyer. Instead of simplistically rejecting the institution in its entirety, Gandhi saw copyright law for what it is—an important social compromise—and sought to engage with it in a way that tracked his beliefs on other issues.<br /><br />This talk will argue that the nuances of Gandhi’s engagement with copyright law hold important lessons for thinking about copyright law in society, and for managing its complex trade-offs. Gandhi’s thinking on the topic anticipated many of the modern dilemmas about the structure and function of copyright law--such as the role of exclusivity, the importance of control and integrity, and the costs and benefits of licensing revenues. And while Gandhi may not have had a clear (or unambiguously correct) solution to any of them, he almost certainly asked the right questions.</p>
<h3>About the Speaker</h3>
<p>Shyam Balganesh’s scholarship focuses on understanding how intellectual property and innovation policy can benefit from the use of ideas, concepts and structures from different areas of the common law. His most recent work tries to understand copyright law’s pre-requisite of “copying” for liability, as a mechanism of pluralistic decision-making that allows it to incorporate both utilitarian and rightsbased considerations into its functioning.</p>
<p>Balganesh received his J.D. from the Yale Law School, where he was an Articles and Essays Editor of the Yale Law Journal and a Student Fellow at the Information Society Project (ISP). Prior to that he spent two years as a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford, and received a B.C.L. and an M.Phil in Law from Oxford University.</p>
<p>His recent publications include: ‘“Hot News’: The Enduring Myth of Property in News,” 111 Columbia Law Review 419 (2011); “The Pragmatic Incrementalism of Common Law Intellectual Property,” 63 Vanderbilt Law Review 1543 (2010); and “Foreseeability and Copyright Incentives,” 122 Harvard Law Review 1569 (2009), among others. He is also currently editing a collection of scholarly essays on the topic of intellectual property and the common law, scheduled to be published by the Cambridge University Press in 2012.</p>
<p><strong>VIDEO</strong></p>
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<iframe src="http://blip.tv/play/AYLshX8A.html?p=1" frameborder="0" height="250" width="250"></iframe><embed style="display:none" src="http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#AYLshX8A" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/gandhi-freedom-and-copyright'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/gandhi-freedom-and-copyright</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaEvent TypeVideoCopyrightAccess to Knowledge2012-04-28T04:11:01ZEventThe Digital Classroom: Social Justice and Pedagogy
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/pathways/facultyworkshop
<b>What happens when we look at the classroom as a space of social justice? What are the ways in which students can be engaged in learning beyond rote memorisation? What innovative methods can be evolved to make students stakeholders in their learning process? These were some of the questions that were thrown up and discussed at the 2 day Faculty Training workshop for participant from colleges included in the Pathways to Higher Education programme, supported by Ford Foundation and collaboratively executed by the Higher Education Innovation and Research Application and the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.</b>
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<p>The workshop focused on 3 chief challenges in contemporary
pedagogy and teaching in higher education in India as identified by <a class="external-link" href="http://heira.in/">HEIRA</a>: The need for innovative
curricula, challenges to social justice in education, and possibilities offered
by the intersection of digital and internet technologies with classroom
teaching and evaluation. In the open discussions, the participating faculty
members used their multidisciplinary skills and teaching experience to look at possibilities that we might implement in our classrooms to create a more
inclusive and participatory environment. The conversations were varied, and
through 3 blog entries I want to capture the focus points of the workshop. In
this first post, I focus specifically on the changing nature of student
engagement with education and innovative ways by which we can learn from the
digital platforms of learning and knowledge production and implement certain
innovations in pedagogy that might better help create inclusive and just learning
environments in the undergraduate classroom in India.</p>
<p><strong>Peer 2 Peer:</strong> One of the observations that was made
unanimously by all the faculty members was that students respond better, learn
faster, engage more deeply with their syllabus when the instructor has a
personal rapport with them. Traditionally, the teachers who have established
human contact which goes beyond the call of duty are also the teachers that
have become catalysts and inspirations for the students. Especially with the
digital aesthetics of non-hierarchical information interaction, this has become
the call of the day.</p>
<p>Establishing the teacher as a peer within the classroom,
rather than the fountainhead of information flow, is an experiment worth
conducting. Like on other digital platforms, can we think of the classroom as a
space where the interlocutors each bring their life experience and learning to
start an information exchange and dialogue that would make them stakeholders in
the process of learning? This would mean that the teacher would be a <em>facilitator</em> who builds conditions of
knowledge production and dissemination, thus also changing his/her relationship
with the idea of curriculum and teaching.</p>
<p><strong>Reciprocal evaluation</strong>: It was pointed out that the grade
oriented academic system often leads to students disengaging with innovative
and meaningful learning practices. With the pressure of completing the
curriculum, the students’ instrumental relationship with their classroom
learning and the highly conservative structures of higher education that do not
offer enough space to experiment with the teaching methods, it often becomes
difficult to initiate innovative pedagogic practices. Learning from the
differently hierarchised digital spaces, it was suggested that one of the ways
by which this could be countered is by introducing reciprocal evaluation
patterns which might not directly be associated with the grades but would
recognise and appreciate the skills that students bring to their learning.</p>
<p>Inspired by the Badges contest at <a class="external-link" href="http://hastac.org/tag/badges">HASTAC</a>,
it was suggested that evaluation has to take into account, more than grades.
Different students bring different skills, experiences, personalities and
behaviours to bear upon the syllabus. They work individually and in clusters to
understand and analyse the curriculum. Recognising these skills and the roles
that they play in their learning environments is essential. Getting students to
offer different badges to each other as well as to the teachers involved, helps
them understand their own learning process and engages them in new ways of
learning.</p>
<p><strong>Role based learning: </strong>Within the Web 2.0 there is a peculiar
condition where individuals are recognised simultaneously as experts and
novices. They bring certain knowledges and experiences to the table which make
them credible sources of information and analysis in those areas. At the same
time, they are often beginner learners in certain other areas and they harness
the power of the web to learn. Such a distributed imagination of a student as
not equally proficient in all areas, but diversely equipped to deal with
different disciplines is missing from our understanding of the higher education
classroom.</p>
<p>We discussed the possibility of making the student responsible not
only for his/her own learning but also the learning of the peers in the
classroom. Making the student aware of what s/he is good at and where s/he is
lacking allows them to gain confidence and also realise that everybody has
differential strengths and aptitudes. Such a classroom might look different
because the students don’t have to be pitched in stressful competition with
each other but instead work collaboratively to learn, research and produce
knowledge in a nurturing and supportive learning environment.</p>
<p>These initial discussions look at the possibility of
innovative classroom teaching that can accommodate for the skills and
differences of the students in higher education in India. The conversations
opened up the idea that the classroom can be reshaped so that it becomes a more
inclusive space where the quality of students’ access to education can be
improved. It also ties in with the larger imagination of classrooms as spaces
where principles of social justice can be invoked so that students who are
disadvantaged in language, learning skills, socio-economic backgrounds, are not
just looked at as either ‘beyond help’ or ‘victims of a system’. Instead, it
encourages to look at the students as differential learners who need to be made
stakeholders in their own processes of learning and education.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/pathways/facultyworkshop'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/pathways/facultyworkshop</a>
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No publishernishantHigher EducationAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesFeaturedNew PedagogiesResearchers at WorkDigital Pluralism2015-05-08T12:36:29ZBlog EntryInvisible Censorship: How the Government Censors Without Being Seen
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/invisible-censorship
<b>The Indian government wants to censor the Internet without being seen to be censoring the Internet. This article by Pranesh Prakash shows how the government has been able to achieve this through the Information Technology Act and the Intermediary Guidelines Rules it passed in April 2011. It now wants methods of censorship that leave even fewer traces, which is why Mr. Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology talks of Internet 'self-regulation', and has brought about an amendment of the Copyright Act that requires instant removal of content.</b>
<h2>Power of the Internet and Freedom of Expression</h2>
<p>The Internet, as anyone who has ever experienced the wonder of going online would know, is a very different communications platform from any that has existed before. It is the one medium where anybody can directly share their thoughts with billions of other people in an instant. People who would never have any chance of being published in a newspaper now have the opportunity to have a blog and provide their thoughts to the world. This also means that thoughts that many newspapers would decide not to publish can be published online since the Web does not, and more importantly cannot, have any editors to filter content. For many dictatorships, the right of people to freely express their thoughts is something that must be heavily regulated. Unfortunately, we are now faced with the situation where some democratic countries are also trying to do so by censoring the Internet.</p>
<h2>Intermediary Guidelines Rules</h2>
<p>In India, the new <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mit.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR314E_10511%281%29.pdf">'Intermediary Guidelines' Rules</a> and the <a class="external-link" href="http://mit.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR315E_10511%281%29.pdf">Cyber Cafe Rules</a> that have been in effect since April 2011 give not only the government, but all citizens of India, great powers to censor the Internet. These rules, which were made by the Department of Information Technology and not by the Parliament, require that all intermediaries remove content that is 'disparaging', 'relating to... gambling', 'harm minors in any way', to which the user 'does not have rights'. When was the last time you checked wither you had 'rights' to a joke before forwarding it? Did you share a Twitter message containing the term "#IdiotKapilSibal", as thousands of people did a few days ago? Well, that is 'disparaging', and Twitter is required by the new law to block all such content. The government of Sikkim can run advertisements for its PlayWin lottery in newspapers, but under the new law it cannot do so online. As you can see, through these ridiculous examples, the Intermediary Guidelines are very badly thought-out and their drafting is even worse. Worst of all, they are unconstitutional, as they put limits on freedom of speech that contravene <a class="external-link" href="http://lawmin.nic.in/coi/coiason29july08.pdf">Article 19(1)(a) and 19(2) of the Constitution</a>, and do so in a manner that lacks any semblance of due process and fairness.</p>
<h2>Excessive Censoring by Internet Companies</h2>
<p>We, at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, decided to test the censorship powers of the new rules by sending frivolous complaints to a number of intermediaries. Six out of seven intermediaries removed content, including search results listings, on the basis of the most ridiculous complaints. The people whose content was removed were not told, nor was the general public informed that the content was removed. If we hadn't kept track, it would be as though that content never existed. Such censorship existed during Stalin's rule in the Soviet Union. Not even during the Emergency has such censorship ever existed in India. Yet, not only was what the Internet companies did legal under the Intermediary Guideline Rules, but if they had not, they could have been punished for content put up by someone else. That is like punishing the post office for the harmful letters that people may send over post.</p>
<h2>Government Has Powers to Censor and Already Censors<br /></h2>
<p>Currently, the government can either block content by using section 69A of the Information Technology Act (which can be revealed using RTI), or it has to send requests to the Internet companies to get content removed. Google has released statistics of government request for content removal as part of its Transparency Report. While Mr. Sibal uses the examples of communally sensitive material as a reason to force censorship of the Internet, out of the 358 items requested to be removed from January 2011 to June 2011 from Google service by the Indian government (including state governments), only 8 were for hate speech and only 1 was for national security. Instead, 255 items (71 per cent of all requests) were asked to be removed for 'government criticism'. Google, despite the government in India not having the powers to ban government criticism due to the Constitution, complied in 51 per cent of all requests. That means they removed many instances of government criticism as well.</p>
<h2>'Self-Regulation': Undetectable Censorship</h2>
<p>Mr. Sibal's more recent efforts at forcing major Internet companies such as Indiatimes, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, to 'self-regulate' reveals a desire to gain ever greater powers to bypass the IT Act when censoring Internet content that is 'objectionable' (to the government). Mr. Sibal also wants to avoid embarrassing statistics such as that revealed by Google's Transparency Report. He wants Internet companies to 'self-regulate' user-uploaded content, so that the government would never have to send these requests for removal in the first place, nor block sites officially using the IT Act. If the government was indeed sincere about its motives, it would not be talking about 'transparency' and 'dialogue' only after it was exposed in the press that the Department of Information Technology was holding secret talks with Internet companies. Given the clandestine manner in which it sought to bring about these new censorship measures, the motives of the government are suspect. Yet, both Mr. Sibal and Mr. Sachin Pilot have been insisting that the government has no plans of Internet censorship, and Mr. Pilot has made that statement officially in the Lok Sabha. This, thus seems to be an instance of censoring without censorship.</p>
<h2>Backdoor Censorship through Copyright Act</h2>
<p>Further, since the government cannot bring about censorship laws in a straightforward manner, they are trying to do so surreptitiously, through the back door. Mr. Sibal's latest proposed amendment to the Copyright Act, which is before the Rajya Sabha right now, has a provision called section 52(1)(c) by which anyone can send a notice complaining about infringement of his copyright. The Internet company will have to remove the content immediately without question, even if the notice is false or malicious. The sender of false or malicious notices is not penalized. But the Internet company will be penalized if it doesn't remove the content that has been complained about. The complaint need not even be shown to be true before the content is removed. Indeed, anyone can complain about any content, without even having to show that they own the rights to that content. The government seems to be keen to have the power to remove content from the Internet without following any 'due process' or fair procedure. Indeed, it not only wants to give itself this power, but it is keen on giving all individuals this power. <br /><br />It's ultimate effect will be the death of the Internet as we know it. Bid adieu to it while there is still time.</p>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/invisible-censorship.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Invisible Censorship (Marathi version)">The article was translated to Marathi and featured in Lokmat</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/invisible-censorship'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/invisible-censorship</a>
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No publisherpraneshIT ActGoogleAccess to KnowledgeSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionIntellectual Property RightsIntermediary LiabilityFeaturedInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-01-04T08:59:14ZBlog EntryCIS Intervention on Future Work of the WIPO Advisory Committee on Enforcement
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ace-7-future-work-cis-intervention
<b>The seventh session of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Advisory Committee on Enforcement (ACE) is being held in Geneva on November 30 and December 1, 2011. Pranesh Prakash intervened during the discussion of future work of the ACE with this comment.</b>
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<p>Thank you, Chair.</p>
<p>I just wanted to point out that some of the proposals on future work could be worded better to reflect their true meaning. For instance, one of the proposal calls for control of the problem of "parallel import". However, "parallel importation" is actually allowed by both the TRIPS Agreement and by various other instruments such as the Berne Convention? Indeed, calling “parallel import” a problem is like calling "exceptions and limitations" a problem. This is a view that has been firmly rejected here at WIPO, especially post the adoption of the WIPO Development Agenda. This, quite obviously, could not have been the intention of the proposal framers.</p>
<p>Further, the link between some of the proposals and the Development Agenda could be made clearer. It has been established that the Development Agenda is not just something for the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) to consider, but for all committees to make an integral part of their work.</p>
<p>I would also like to underscore the importance of evidence-based policy-making.</p>
<p>Lastly, I would like to mention that a report has already been commissioned by WIPO on intermediary liability, which was written by Prof. Lilian Edwards and was released in a side-event during SCCR 22, in June 2011.</p>
<p>If the ACE is going ahead with a study or an event, I would suggest that the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion, who in his report to the UN Human Rights Council dealt in some depth with intermediary liability, be involved or invited.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ace-7-future-work-cis-intervention'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ace-7-future-work-cis-intervention</a>
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No publisherpraneshDevelopmentAccess to KnowledgeCopyrightIntellectual Property RightsWIPO2011-12-01T15:30:38ZBlog EntryCIS Hosts Scanned Version of George Orwell’s Books vs. Cigarettes
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/books-vs-cigarettes
<b>Verbindingen/Jonctions (V/J), the bi-annual multidisciplinary festival organised by Constant is taking place on December 1, 2011. Amateur scanning of books often raises a lot of questions, around the issue of copyright. For this V/J13 is scanning George Orwell’s Books vs. Cigarettes. The essay is in public domain in Russia, India and South Africa, but not in Europe and America due to copyright issues. CIS is hosting the scanned pages of the essay in public domain.</b>
<p>During the morning session DIY-made book scanner and OCR-software will be used to transform the scans into text files and in the afternoon session the digital material generated in the morning will be remixed.<br /><br />The main sessions can be followed online at the home page of <a class="external-link" href="http://www.vj13.constantvzw.org/site/">VJ13</a></p>
<h3>About VJ13</h3>
<p>Verbindingen/Jonctions (V/J) is the bi-annual multidisciplinary festival organised by Constant. Since 1997, Verbindingen/Jonctions combines high, low and no-tech strategies from utopian, contemporary, traditional and tribal cultures, free software, feminism and queer theories. V/J is an occasion to explore the space between thinking and doing, and the festival is always a mix of activities. It is an occasion to invite radio makers, artists, programmers, academics, Linux users, interface designers, urban explorers, performance artists, technicians, lawyers and others to experience each other’s practice, and to share their interests with a broad public of visitors.</p>
<p>V/J13 has been developed in collaboration with Le P’tit Ciné, Recyclart, Hacker Space Brussels (HSB), QO2, Renovas, Boutique de Quartier and Yves Poliart, Myriam Van Imschoot, Piet Zwart Institute: Networked Media.</p>
<p>Download the <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/books-vs-cigarettes.zip" class="internal-link" title="Books vs Cigarettes">scanned version</a> (Zip files, 28091 kb)</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/books-vs-cigarettes'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/books-vs-cigarettes</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaCopyrightAccess to Knowledge2011-12-01T13:31:39ZBlog EntryComment by CIS at ACE on Presentation on French Charter on the Fight against Cyber-Counterfeiting
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ace-7-french-charter-cis-comment
<b>The seventh session of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Advisory Committee on Enforcement is being held in Geneva on November 30 and December 1, 2011. Pranesh Prakash responded to a presentation by Prof. Pierre Sirinelli of the École de droit de la Sorbonne, Université Paris 1 on 'The French Charter on the Fight against Cyber-Counterfeiting of December 16, 2009' with this comment.</b>
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<p>Thank you, Chair. I speak on behalf of the Centre for Internet and Society. First, I would like to congratulate you on your re-election.<br /><br />And I would like to congratulate Prof. Sirenelli on his excellent presentation.<br /><br />I would like to flag a few points, though:</p>
<ol><li>One of the benefits of normal laws, as opposed to the soft/plastic laws, which he champions, is that normal laws are bound by procedures established by law, due process requirements, and principles of natural justice. Unfortunately, the soft/plastic laws, which in essence are private agreements, are not.</li><li>The report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Freedom of Expression and Opinion made it clear in his report to the UN Human Rights Council that the Internet is now an intergral part of citizens exercising their right of freedom of speech under national constitutions and under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That report highlights that many initiatives on copyright infringement, including that of the French government with HADOPI and the UK, actually contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights</li><li>The right of privacy is also flagged by many as something that will have to be compromised if such private enforcement of copyright is encouraged.<br /></li></ol>
<p>I'd like to know Prof. Sirinelli's views on these three issues: due process, right of freedom of speech, and the right to privacy.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ace-7-french-charter-cis-comment'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ace-7-french-charter-cis-comment</a>
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No publisherpraneshAccess to KnowledgeCopyrightPrivacyFreedom of Speech and ExpressionIntellectual Property RightsPiracyCensorshipWIPO2011-12-01T11:59:45ZBlog EntryStatement of CIS on the WIPO Broadcast Treaty at the 23rd SCCR
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sccr-23-broadcast-cis-statement
<b>The twenty-third session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights is being held in Geneva from November 22, 2011 to December 2, 2011. Pranesh Prakash delivered this statement on a new proposal made by South Africa and Mexico (SCCR/23/6) on a treaty for broadcasters.
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<p>The Centre for Internet and Society would like to thank the South African and Mexican delegations for their hard work on this text before us.</p>
<p>We wish to reiterate the statement on principles provided last SCCR by many civil society non-governmental organizations, cable casters and technology companies opposing a rights-based Broadcasting Treaty, and would like to associate ourselves with the statements made today by Public Knowledge, Computer & Communications Industry Association, Knowledge Ecology International, International Federation of Library Associations, and the Canadian Library Association.</p>
<h3>Broadcasters Already Protected Online<br /></h3>
<p>Broadcasters make two kinds of investments for which they are protected. They invest in infrastructure and they invest in licensing copyrighted works. The first investment is protected by 'broadcast rights', and the latter investment is protected by copyright law.</p>
<p>Broadcasters, being licensees of copyrighted works, generally already have rights of enforcement insofar as their licence is concerned. Therefore there is no need to provide for additional protections with regard to broadcasters in order to enable them to proceed against acts that violate existing copyright laws: they already have those rights by way of licence. This is often forgotten when talking about rights of broadcasters.</p>
<p>The investments to be made in infrastructure in traditional broadcast and in IP-based transmission are very different, even if it is the same 'traditional broadcasters' who are indulging in both. Given that this investment is the basis of additional protection for broadcaster over and above the rights provided to underlying copyright, IP-based transmissions should not be covered in any way even if it is traditional broadcast organizations that are engaged in them.</p>
<p>Providing new and separate rights to large broadcasters for their online transmission, as is currently being done via the provision on 'retransmission' while excluding small webcasters will create a hierarchy and a class distinction without any basis in either principle or existing laws.</p>
<h3>Support Countries' Concerns</h3>
<p>We also wish to support the amendments suggested by the Indian delegation. As we were reminded by the Indian delegation, the General Assembly mandate of 2007 only extends to traditional broadcasting and to a signal-based approach. In this regard, we also wish to support the question posed by the United States delegation between signal-based and rights-based approaches, as also the strong statement by the Brazilian delegation on the need to ensure that cultural diversity and competition are protected and promoted by any international instrument on broadcasting, and we would like to add 'preservation of a vibrant public domain' as provided by Paragraph 16 of the WIPO Development Agenda.<br /><br />Thank you, Chair.<br /><br /><br /></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sccr-23-broadcast-cis-statement'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sccr-23-broadcast-cis-statement</a>
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No publisherpraneshAccess to KnowledgeCopyrightIntellectual Property RightsBroadcastingWIPO2011-11-30T06:55:43ZBlog EntryCIS-TWN Analysis of WIPO Treaty for the Print Disabled (SCCR/22/15)
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-analysis-july2011-treaty-print-disabilities
<b>CIS and the Third World Network (TWN) conducted a quick analysis of the "Consensus document on an international instrument on limitations and exceptions for persons with print disabilities presented by Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, and the United States of America" presented as WIPO document numbered SCCR/22/15.</b>
<h1>SCCR/22/15</h1>
<p>ORIGINAL: English</p>
<p>DATE: June 20, 2011</p>
<p>Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights</p>
<p>Twenty-Second Session Geneva, June 15 to 24, 2011</p>
<p>Consensus document on an international instrument on limitations and exceptions for persons with print disabilities <i>presented by Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, and the United States of America</i></p>
<h2 id="preamble">PREAMBLE</h2>
<p>Recalling the principles of non-discrimination, equal opportunity and access, proclaimed in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,</p>
<p>Mindful of the obstacles that are prejudicial to human development and the fulfillment of disabled persons with regard to education, research, access to information and communication,</p>
<p>Emphasizing the importance of copyright protection as an incentive for literary and artistic creation and enhancing opportunities for everyone to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits,</p>
<p>Recognizing the importance of both accessibility to the achievement of equal opportunities in all spheres of society and of the protection of the rights of authors in their literary and artistic works in a manner as effective and uniform as possible,</p>
<p>Aware of the many barriers to access to information and communication experienced by persons who are blind or have limited vision, or have other disabilities regarding access to published works,</p>
<p>Aware that the majority of visually impaired persons/persons with a print disability live in countries of low or moderate incomes,</p>
<p>Desiring to provide full and equal access to information, culture and communication for the visually impaired persons/persons with a print disability and, towards that end, considering the need both to expand the number of works in accessible formats and to improve access to those works,</p>
<p>Recognizing the opportunities and challenges for the visually impaired/persons with a print disability presented by the development of new information and communication technologies, including technological publishing and communication platforms that are transnational in nature,</p>
<p>Recognizing the need to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers,</p>
<p>Aware that national copyright legislation is territorial in nature, and where activity is undertaken across jurisdictions, uncertainty regarding the legality of activity undermines the development and use of new technologies and services that can potentially improve the lives of the visually impaired/persons with print disabilities,</p>
<p>Recognizing the large number of Members who, to that end, have established exceptions and limitations in their national copyright laws for visually impaired persons/persons with a print disability, yet the continuing shortage of works in <s>special</s><span style="text-decoration: underline;">accessible</span> formats for such persons,</p>
<p>Recognizing that the preference is for works to be made accessible by rightholders to people with disabilities at publication and that, to the extent that the market is unable to provide appropriate access to works for visually impaired persons/persons with a print disability, it is recognized that alternative measures are needed to improve such access,</p>
<p>Recognizing the need to maintain a balance between the rights of authors and the larger public interest, particularly education, research and access to information, and that such a balance must facilitate effective and timely access to works for the benefit of visually impaired persons/persons with a print disability,</p>
<p>Emphasizing the importance and flexibility of the three-step test for limitations and exceptions established in Article 9(2) of the Berne Convention and other international instruments,</p>
<p>Considering the discussions within the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights on the issue of exceptions and limitations for the benefit of visually impaired persons/persons with a print disability and the various proposals tabled by Member States,</p>
<p>Prompted by a desire to contribute to the implementation of the relevant recommendations of the Development Agenda of the World Intellectual Property Organization,</p>
<p>Taking into account the importance of an international legal instrument/joint recommendation/treaty both to increase the number and range of accessible format works available to visually impaired persons/persons with a print disability in the world and to provide the necessary minimum flexibilities in copyright laws that are needed to ensure full and equal access to information and communication for persons who are visually impaired/have a print disability in order to support their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others and to ensure the opportunity to develop and utilize their creative, artistic and intellectual potential, for their own benefit and for the enrichment of society,</p>
<p>Have agreed as follows:</p>
<h2 id="article-a">ARTICLE A</h2>
<h2 id="definitions">DEFINITIONS</h2>
<p>For purposes of these provisions</p>
<p>"work" means a work in which copyright subsists, whether published or otherwise made publicly available in any media.</p>
<p>"accessible format copy" means a copy of a work in an alternative manner or form which gives a beneficiary person access to the work, including to permit the person to have access as feasibly and comfortably as a person without a print disability. The accessible format copy must respect the integrity of the original work and be used exclusively by <span style="text-decoration: underline;">beneficiary persons</span><s>persons with print disabilities</s>.<sup><a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<p>[Possible enumeration of different formats.]<sup><a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
<p>"authorized entity" means a governmental agency, a non-profit entity or <span style="text-decoration: underline;">an</span><s>non-profit</s> organization<sup><a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup> that has as one of its <s>primary missions</s><span style="text-decoration: underline;">activities</span> to assist persons with print disabilities by providing them with services relating to education, training, adaptive reading, or information access.</p>
<p>An authorized entity maintains policies and procedures to establish the bona fide nature of persons with print disabilities that they serve.</p>
<p><s>An authorized entity has the trust of both persons with print disabilities and copyright rights holders. It is understood that to obtain the trust of rightholders and beneficiary persons, it is not necessary to require the prior permission of said rightholders or beneficiary persons.</s><sup><a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup></p>
<p><s>If an authorized entity is a nation-wide network of organizations, then all organizations, institutions, and entities that participate in the network must adhere to these characteristics.</s></p>
<p>"reasonable price for developed countries" means that the accessible format copy of the work is available at a similar or lower price than the price of the work available to persons without print disabilities in that market.</p>
<p>"reasonable price for developing countries" means that the accessible format copy of the work is available at prices that are affordable in that market, taking into account the humanitarian needs of persons with print disabilities.</p>
<p>References to 'copyright' include copyright and any relevant rights related to copyright that are provided by a Contracting Party in compliance with <s>the Rome Convention, the TRIPS Agreement, the WPPT or otherwise</s>any applicable international treaties or otherwise.<sup><a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn5" id="fnref5">5</a></sup></p>
<h2 id="article-b">ARTICLE B</h2>
<h2 id="beneficiary-persons">BENEFICIARY PERSONS</h2>
<p>A beneficiary person is a person who</p>
<ol style="list-style-type: lower-alpha; ">
<li>is blind;</li>
<li>has a visual impairment or a perceptual or reading disability, such as dyslexia, which cannot be improved by the use of corrective lenses to give visual function substantially equivalent to that of a person who has no such impairment or disability and so is unable to read printed works to substantially the same degree as a person without an impairment or disability; or</li>
<li>is unable, through physical disability, to hold or manipulate a book or to focus or move the eyes to the extent that would be normally acceptable for reading.</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="article-c">ARTICLE C</h2>
<h2 id="national-law-exceptions-on-accessible-format-copies">NATIONAL LAW EXCEPTIONS ON ACCESSIBLE FORMAT COPIES</h2>
<ol style="list-style-type: decimal; ">
<li>
<p>Member State/Contracting Party should/shall provide in their national copyright law for an exception or limitation to the right of reproduction, the right of distribution and the right of making available to the public, as defined in article 8 of the WCT, for beneficiary persons as defined herein.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A Member State/Contracting Party may fulfill Article C (1) by providing an exception or limitation in its national copyright law such that</p>
<ol style="list-style-type: upper-alpha; ">
<li>
<p>Authorized entities shall be permitted without the authorization of the owner of copyright to make an accessible format copy of a work, supply that accessible format copy or an accessible format copy obtained from another authorized entity to a beneficiary person by any means, including by non-commercial lending or by electronic communication by wire or wireless means, and undertake any intermediate steps to achieve these objectives, when all of the following conditions are met:</p>
<ol style="list-style-type: decimal; ">
<li>the authorized entity wishing to undertake said activity has lawful access to that work or a copy of that work;</li>
<li>the work is converted to an accessible format copy, which may include any means needed to navigate information in the accessible format, but does not introduce changes other than those needed to make the work accessible to the beneficiary person;</li>
<li>copies of the work in the accessible format are supplied exclusively to be used by beneficiary persons; and </li>
<li><s>4. the activity is undertaken on a non-profit basis. </s><sup><a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn6" id="fnref6">6</a></sup></li>
<li>
<p>A beneficiary person or someone acting on his or her behalf may make an accessible format copy of a work for the personal use of the beneficiary person where the beneficiary person has lawful access to that work or a copy of that work.</p>
</li>
</ol> </li>
<li>
<p>A Member State/Contracting Party may fulfill Article C (1) by providing any other exception or limitation in its national copyright law that is limited to certain special cases which do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the right holder.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The Member State/Contracting Party may limit said exceptions or limitations to published works which, in the applicable <s>special</s><span style="text-decoration: underline;">accessible</span> format, cannot be otherwise obtained within a reasonable time and at a reasonable price.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>It shall be a matter for national law to determine whether exceptions or limitations referred to in this Article are subject to remuneration.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="article-d">ARTICLE D</h2>
<h2 id="cross-border-exchange-of-accessible-format-copies">CROSS-BORDER EXCHANGE OF ACCESSIBLE FORMAT COPIES</h2>
<ol style="list-style-type: decimal; ">
<li>
<p>Member States/Contracting Parties should/shall provide that if an accessible format copy of a work is made under an exception or limitation or export license in their national law, that accessible format copy may be distributed or made available to a beneficiary person in another Member State/Contracting Party by an authorized entity<s> where that other Member State/Contracting Party would permit that beneficiary person to make or import that accessible copy</s>.<sup><a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn7" id="fnref7">7</a></sup></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A Member State/Contracting Party may fulfill Article D(1) by providing an exception or limitation in its national copyright law such that:</p>
<ol style="list-style-type: upper-alpha; ">
<li>
<p>Authorized entities shall be permitted without the authorization of the owner of copyright to distribute or make available accessible format copies to authorized entities in other Member States/Contracting Parties for the exclusive use of persons with print disabilities, where such activity is undertaken on a non-profit basis.<sup><a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn8" id="fnref8">8</a></sup></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Authorized entities shall be permitted without the authorization of the owner of copyright to distribute or make available accessible format copies to persons with print disabilities in other Member States/Contracting Parties where the authorized entity has verified the individual is properly entitled to receive such accessible format copies under that other Member State/Contracting Party's national law.<sup><a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn9" id="fnref9">9</a></sup></p>
</li>
</ol> </li>
</ol>
<p>The Member State/Contracting Party may limit said distribution or making available to published works which, in the applicable <s>special</s><span style="text-decoration: underline;">accessible</span> format, cannot be otherwise obtained within a reasonable time and at a reasonable price, in the country of importation.</p>
<ol style="list-style-type: decimal; ">
<li><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Without prejudice to other exceptions to the exclusive rights of authors that are otherwise permitted by the Berne Convention or the TRIPS Agreement,</span> a Member State/Contracting Party may fulfill Article D(1) by providing any other exception or limitation in its national copyright law that is limited to certain special cases which do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the right holder.</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="article-e">ARTICLE E</h2>
<h2 id="importation-of-accessible-format-copies">IMPORTATION OF ACCESSIBLE FORMAT COPIES</h2>
<p>To the extent that national law would permit a beneficiary person or an authorized entity acting on the beneficiary person’s behalf to make an accessible format copy of a work, the national law should/shall permit a beneficiary person or an authorized entity acting on that person's behalf to import an accessible format copy.<sup><a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn10" id="fnref10">10</a></sup></p>
<h2 id="article-f">ARTICLE F</h2>
<h2 id="circumvention-of-technological-protection-measures"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">CIRCUMVENTION OF </span>TECHNOLOGICAL PROTECTION MEASURES</h2>
<p>Member States/Contracting Parties should/shall ensure that beneficiaries of the exception provided by Article C have the means to enjoy the exception where technological protection measures have been applied to a work.</p>
<p><s>In the absence of voluntary measures by rightholders and to the extent that copies of the work in the accessible format are not available commercially at a reasonable price or via authorized entities, Member States/Contracting Parties should/shall take appropriate measures to ensure that beneficiaries of the exception provided by Article C have the means of benefiting from that exception when technical protection measures have been applied to a work, to the extent necessary to benefit from that exception.</s><sup><a class="footnoteRef" href="#fn11" id="fnref11">11</a></sup></p>
<h2 id="article-g"><s>ARTICLE G</s></h2>
<h2 id="relationship-with-contracts"><s>RELATIONSHIP WITH CONTRACTS</s></h2>
<p><s>Nothing herein shall prevent Member States/Contracting Parties from addressing the relationship of contract law and statutory exceptions and limitations for beneficiary persons.</s></p>
<h2 id="article-h">ARTICLE H</h2>
<h2 id="respect-for-privacy">RESPECT FOR PRIVACY</h2>
<p>In the implementation of these exceptions and limitations, Member States/Contracting Parties should/shall endeavour to protect the privacy of beneficiary persons on an equal basis with others.</p>
<p>[End of document]</p>
<div class="footnotes">
<hr />
<ol>
<li id="fn1">
<p>This change must be replicated everywhere where appropriate. <a class="footnoteBackLink" href="#fnref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2">
<p>Formats should not be enumerated, since even the disabilities are not enumerated. <a class="footnoteBackLink" href="#fnref2" title="Jump back to footnote 2">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3">
<p>Non-profit organizations alone cannot cope with the needs of visually impaired people in the developing world. Thus, while it may sound like the ideal, it is impractical given the realities of the situation in the developing world. <a class="footnoteBackLink" href="#fnref3" title="Jump back to footnote 3">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4">
<p>A "trust" system would make it impossible for developing countries to actualize these provisions. If despite this, copyright infringement happens, then national remedies exist for such infringement. <a class="footnoteBackLink" href="#fnref4" title="Jump back to footnote 4">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn5">
<p>To clarify: what is the purpose of these and not mentioning WCT, Berne, etc.? <a class="footnoteBackLink" href="#fnref5" title="Jump back to footnote 5">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn6">
<p>To be deleted for the same reasons as above. Non-profit basis, if insisted upon, can be retained in Article D(2)(A), but not here. <a class="footnoteBackLink" href="#fnref6" title="Jump back to footnote 6">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn7">
<p>Import law provisions are already there in Article E, and should remain there. In Art. E, it states, “shall permit” import, and here, “would permit”. <a class="footnoteBackLink" href="#fnref7" title="Jump back to footnote 7">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn8">
<p>This instance of "non-profit basis" may be retained if necessary. <a class="footnoteBackLink" href="#fnref8" title="Jump back to footnote 8">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn9">
<p>To clarify: what would such verification require? Would self-certification suffice? <a class="footnoteBackLink" href="#fnref9" title="Jump back to footnote 9">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn10">
<p>It should be clarified, possibly through an agreed statement, that nothing in this article shall derogate from the flexibility provided in Art. 6 of the TRIPS Agreement, which allows for countries to provide international exhaustion.</p>
<p>Thus, if the principle of international exhaustion is in place (i.e., parallel importation is allowed), then importation can be carried out by anyone, and not just by a beneficiary person or an authorized entity. <a class="footnoteBackLink" href="#fnref10" title="Jump back to footnote 10">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn11">
<p>This second paragraph weakens the principle established in the first by adding more conditions. They are almost phrased as alternatives, and the first alternative (paragraph) is the better one. <a class="footnoteBackLink" href="#fnref11" title="Jump back to footnote 11">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol></div>
</li>
</ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-analysis-july2011-treaty-print-disabilities'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-analysis-july2011-treaty-print-disabilities</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshIntellectual Property RightsAccessibilityAccess to KnowledgeWIPO2011-10-12T08:29:01ZBlog EntryExhaustion PDF
https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/exhaustion.pdf
<b>file</b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/exhaustion.pdf'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/exhaustion.pdf</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaIntellectual Property RightsAccess to Knowledge2011-10-03T05:16:58ZFileSeptember 2011 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2011-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! In this issue we are pleased to present you the latest updates about our research, upcoming events, and news and media coverage that happened in the month of September 2011.</b>
<h2><b>Researchers@Work</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. CIS believes that in order to understand the contemporary concerns in the field of Internet and society, it is necessary to produce local and contextual accounts of the interaction between the Internet and socio-cultural and geo-political structures. To build original research base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organizations and individuals in order to focus on its two year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India. Five monographs were recently launched at a workshop, <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/workshop">Locating Internets: Histories of the Internet(s) in India — Research Training and Curriculum</a> held in Ahmedabad from 19 to 22 August 2011.</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/rewiring-bodies">Re:Wiring Bodies</a> by Asha Achuthan</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/last-cultural-mile">The Last Cultural Mile</a> by Ashish Rajadhyaksha</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/porn-law-video-technology">Porn: Law, Video, Technology</a> by Namita A Malhotra </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/archives-and-access">Archives and Access</a> by Aparna Balachandran and Rochelle Pinto </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/internet-society-space">Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities</a> by Pratyush Shankar</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>Digital Natives with a Cause?</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? is a knowledge programme initiated by CIS, India and Hivos, Netherlands. It is a research inquiry that seeks to look at the changing landscape of social change and political participation and the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who want to critically engage with the dominant discourse on youth, technology and social change, in order to look at the alternative practices and ideas in the Global South. It also aims at building new ecologies that amplify and augment the interventions and actions of the digitally young as they shape our futures.</p>
<h3>Featured Publication</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook">Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?</a> - This collaboratively produced collective, edited by Nishant Shah and Fieke Jansen, asks critical and pertinent questions about theory and practice around ‘digital revolutions’ in a post MENA (Middle East - North Africa) world. It works with multiple vocabularies and frameworks and produces dialogues and conversations between digital natives, academic and research scholars, practitioners, development agencies and corporate structures to examine the nature and practice of digital natives in emerging contexts from the Global South.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Book Review</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/digital-alternatives-book-review">Digital (Alter)Natives with a Cause? — Book Review by Maarten van den Berg</a> - The books come in a beautifully designed cassette and are accompanied by a funky yellow package in the shape of a floppy disk containing the booklet ‘D:coding Digital Natives’, a corresponding DVD, and a pack of postcards portraying the evolution of writing - in the sentence ‘I love you’, written with a goose feather in 1734, to the character set ‘i<3u’ entered on a mobile device in 2011, writes Maarten van den Berg. The review was published in "<a href="http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/Articles/Digital-Alter-Natives">The Broker</a>" on 19 September 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/events/book-launch">Digital AlterNatives book launch</a> – CIS and Hivos launched this book at the Museum for Communication, Hague on 16 September 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.</p>
<h3>Event Participated</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/usof-meeting">Stakeholders Meeting of the USOF on Facilitating ICT Access to Persons with Disabilities in Rural Areas</a>, on 7 September 2011. Nirmita Narasimhan made a presentation.</li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Access to Knowledge</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Access to Knowledge is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents, and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape. CIS believes that access to knowledge and culture is essential, and such access promotes creativity and innovation, and helps bridge the differences between the developing and developed worlds in a positive manner. Towards this end, CIS is campaigning for an international treaty on copyright exceptions for print-challenged people, advocating against laws (such as the PUPFIP Bill) that privatize public-funded knowledge, call for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty to be restricted to broadcast, question the demonization of 'pirates', and support endeavours that explore and question the current copyright regime.</p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/copyright-bill-parliament">Copyright Amendment Bill in Parliament</a> by Nirmita Narasimhan, 30 August 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/photocopying-the-past">Photocopying the past</a> by Sunil Abraham in the Indian Express, 2 September 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/calling-out-the-bsa-on-bs">Calling Out the BSA on Its BS</a> by Pranesh Prakash, 9 September 2011.</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>Internet Governance</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Internet technologies have fundamentally questioned the notion of governance, not only at the level of administration but also at the level of mechanisms of control, regulation and shaping of the individual. e-Governance initiatives, in combination with other regimes of surveillance, control and censorship, are redefining what it means to be a citizen, a subject, and an individual. We look at questions of governance — at the micro level of the individual and the private (family, relationships, community structures, etc.) as well as the level of governmentality — at the macro level of nation state, citizenship, market economies, and the public (spaces of consumption, work, leisure, political engagement, etc.) under the umbrella of digital governance.</p>
<h3>New Blog Entry</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/understanding-right-to-information">Understanding the Right to Information</a> by Elonnai Hickok, 28 September 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Events Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/events/internet-as-a-tool-for-political-change">Using the Internet as a Tool for Political Change: Lessons Learned and Way Forward</a>, IGF, Nairobi, 27 September 2011. </li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum. It is imperative to resolve these issues in the common interest of users and service providers.</p>
<h3>Articles by Shyam Ponappa</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Shyam Ponappa is a Distinguished Fellow at CIS. He writes regularly on Telecom issues in the Business Standard and these articles are mirrored on the CIS website.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/reviving-growth">Reviving Growth</a>, published in the Business Standard on 1 September 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/events/open-spectrum-for-development-in-the-context-of-the-digital-migration">Open Spectrum for Development in the Context of the Digital Migration</a>, IGF, Nairobi, 29 September 2011.</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>Miscellaneous</b></h2>
<h3>Film Screening</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/events/partners-in-crime">Screening of Partners in Crime</a>, Vikalp@Smriti Nandan along with CIS screened the film and followed it with a discussion with the director of the film, Paromita Vohra, Smriti Nandan Cultural Centre, 9 September 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/workshop-rsa-encryption">Prime Security: The Mathematics of RSA Encryption</a>, a one-day workshop with Rohit Gupta, a leading Mathematician.</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>News & Media Coverage</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/social-media-masks-forgotten-protests">India's social media "spring" masks forgotten protests</a> [Alistair Scrutton in Reuters, 25 August 2011].</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/social-media-key-to-hazare-success">Social media holds the key to Hazare's campaign success</a> [Alistair Scrutton in NEWS.scotsman.com, 26 August 2011].</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/digital-divide">Digital divide: Why Irom Sharmila can’t do an Anna</a> [FirstPost.Ideas, 25 August 2011].</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/revolutions-viral?searchterm=When+revolutions+go+viral+">When revolutions go viral</a> [Times of India (Crescent Edition), 27 August 2011].</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ibsa-seminar">IBSA Seminar on Global Internet Governance</a>, organised by the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations, with support from the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) and the Center for Technology & Society (CTS/FGV) and governmental and non- governmental actors from India, Brazil and South Africa, 1 to 2 September 2011, Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV) - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Pranesh Prakash participated in this event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/copyright-amendment-bill-in-indian-parliament">Copyrights Amendment Bill to Be Tabled in Indian Parliament – Parallel Import provisions have Been Removed</a> [Mike Palmedo in infojustice.org, 5 September 2011]</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/power-of-information">The Power of Information: New Technologies for Philanthropy and Development</a> [Indigo Trust, 15 September 2011]. Sunil Abraham participated in this event. A video of his speech is now available on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhpLkEhn9AY">YouTube</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/using-social-media-to-understand-peoples-pulse">Planning Commission, Census 2011 and India Post using social media to understand people's pulse better</a> [Vikas Kumar in the Economic Times, 20 September 2011]</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/foss-instrument-for-accessible-development">The Impact of Regulation: FOSS and Enterprise</a>, organised by FOSSFA and ICFOSS, IGF, Nairobi, 28 September 2011. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/privacy-security-access-to-rights">Privacy, Security, and Access to Rights: A Technical and Policy Analyses</a>, organised by Expression Technologies, IGF, Nairobi, 29 September 2011. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/how-can-privacy-be-protected">Putting Users First: How Can Privacy be Protected in Today’s Complex Mobile Ecosystem?</a>, organised by GSM Association, 29 September 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/truman-show-in-kerala">The Truman Show, in Kerala</a> [Times of India, posted on CIS website on 23 September 2011].</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/making-difference-online-offline">Making a difference, online and offline</a> [LiveMint, 27 September 2011].</li>
</ul>
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<li style="text-align: justify; ">Join the CIS group on <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=458&qid=46981" target="_blank">Facebook</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Visit us at <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=459&qid=46981" target="_blank">www.cis-india.org</a></li>
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<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2011-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2011-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAW2012-07-30T06:34:19ZPageCopyrights Amendment Bill to Be Tabled in Indian Parliament – Parallel Import provisions have Been Removed
https://cis-india.org/news/copyright-amendment-bill-in-indian-parliament
<b>This week, the Indian government’s Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Parliament) will debate the Copyright Amendments Act.</b>
<p>The Centre for Internet and Society has <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/copyright-bill-parliament" class="external-link">raised a number of concerns</a> – including the removal of parallel import provisions that would allowed universities and libraries to access foreign works more cheaply, the extension of copyright terms beyond those required by the TRIPS Agreement, and the introduction of technological protection measures (with stiff penalties for circumventing them).</p>
<p>CIS <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/copyright-bill-parliament" class="external-link">describes other provisions</a> in the bill: Fair dealing exceptions have been extended “to all works except computer programs;” the “scope of compulsory licensing under sec 31 has been expanded from ‘any Indian work’ to ‘any work’;” and two provisions have been introduced to allow for the conversion, reproduction, and distribution of works for people with disabilities.</p>
<p>According to Prashant Reddy from the National University of Juridical Sciences in Kolkata, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on that reviewed the original legislation had strongly supported parallel imports of books. In a <a class="external-link" href="http://spicyipindia.blogspot.com/2011/09/parallel-imports-unexpected-dumping-of.html">blog post on Spicy IP</a>, he noted that “publishers routinely introduce old versions of books in India,” and that parallel imports would allow students to obtain newer copies at reasonable prices.</p>
<p>However, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2011/09/04233327/Removal-of-parallel-imports-cl.html?h=B">a news story in Live Mint </a>reports that the publishing industry “had strongly opposed the amendments.”</p>
<p>This article by Mike Palmedo was published in infojustice.org on September 5, 2011. Read the original story <a class="external-link" href="http://infojustice.org/archives/5328">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/copyright-amendment-bill-in-indian-parliament'>https://cis-india.org/news/copyright-amendment-bill-in-indian-parliament</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaIntellectual Property RightsAccess to Knowledge2011-09-14T11:47:37ZNews ItemCalling Out the BSA on Its BS
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/calling-out-the-bsa-on-bs
<b>The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is trying to pull wool over government officials' eyes by equating software piracy with tax losses. Pranesh Prakash points out how that argument lacks cogency, and that tax losses would be better averted if BSA's constituent companies just decided to pay full taxes in India.</b>
<p>In the past we have covered the Business Software Alliance's <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/fallacies-lies-and-video-pirates">lack of rigour</a> <a href="http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/06/4993.ars">in their piracy</a> <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/3993427">statistics</a>, and disconnect from their constituent members when it comes to <a href="http://www.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/2010-special-301">opposing free and open source software</a>. In reaction to the criticism they have received over the years, BSA has finally stopped equating lack of sales with losses. But now, they have started equating software piracy with tax losses.</p>
<h2>How IDC thinks tax works</h2>
<p>In a report prepared by International Data Corporation (IDC) for the Business Software Alliance (BSA), they note:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Substantial value in form of potential industry and tax revenues is lost to software piracy: The situation in India is not healthy with a software piracy rate of 65% in 2009 (more than six out of ten PC software programs installed in 2009 were not paid for). Only one-third of the overall PC software revenues are captured by the industry incumbents and the rest are lost to software piracy. Most of the unlicensed software use occurs in otherwise legal businesses installing the programs on more PCs than allowed by the licenses they have paid for. Consequently, in 2009, the state exchequer tax receipts loss was roughly US$866 million at the current piracy and employment levels, as the industry lost its otherwise legitimate share of revenues to piracy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For this to be true, there must be two assumptions that are satisfied. First, those who are pirating software must not spend the money that they save by doing so on any other taxable activity. Second, the companies that would get the money if the software weren't pirated must pay the Indian government taxes. As we'll see, neither of these two assumptions are warranted.</p>
<p>The BSA-IDC report reasons as follows: Pirates don't pay taxes on the illegal software that they sell, so that is tax evasion and consequently a tax loss. It states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Higher demand for legal software will result in higher flow of license volume through the supply chain, resulting in increase in volume of business transactions. Each transaction adds a certain percentage of the deal or value added to the state exchequer's coffers in the form of indirect tax revenue[...] Increase in demand will also result in increased employment. Consequently, revenues from direct taxes will be increased for the government, as employees join newly created high-paying jobs.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>How tax actually works</h2>
<p>That reasoning is flawed. The majority of software piracy in India happens through two methods: violation of software licence terms by using the software on more computers than it is licensed for; and pre-loading of illegal software by computer sellers. Those 'computer seller' pirates do not sell the software separately, but bundle it with the computer as an additional service. In other words, they don't charge for it in the first place. So, quite clearly, there is no tax evasion.</p>
<p>Despite there being no tax evasion, there is the possibility of tax loss for the state. That would happen when instead of doing taxable activity A with with their money, they do non-taxable activity B. Putting money in special government bonds instead of spending it on software, for instance, is one such instance. However, that is a strange, unwarranted assumption. People don't always put the money that they don't spend on software into government bonds. It is a much more reasonable assumption that people would spend that money on other consumables, like food or other such tangible commodities.</p>
<p>Lastly, there is the unwarranted assumption that increase in demand for legal software increases employment. In fact, it is a much more reasonable assumption that increase in piracy increases employment in case of developing countries. Printing ("DTP") shops use pirated versions of Photoshop, CorelDraw and InDesign, computer education centres use pirated versions of Microsoft Windows, offices use pirated versions of Microsoft Word and Excel. If these didn't teach their employees the use of pirated software, millions of people would lose their jobs. All of these employees pay direct taxes. There is no analysis in the BSA-IDC report that accounts for this, treating all these millions of people as non-existent for purposes of their analysis.</p>
<h2>Increasing tax: Make MNC software companies pay full taxes</h2>
<p>Thus, there is no real tax loss to the government if the money that would have been spent on commercial software was instead spent on some other commodity. Indeed, there might even be an increase in tax collection because software companies, including leading ones such as Microsoft, are much more likely to avoid taxes than companies that deal in tangible commodities. There are well-known routes of decreasing tax liability for intangible goods such as software. Software companies normally state that they license software instead of selling it (as this suits them on issues such as customs duties), but when it comes to income tax, they try to paint the transaction as a sale of a product. (Microsoft, for instance claims that its earnings in India are 'business income' and not 'royalties' and hence is exempt under the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement between India and the USA.) A company that deals with tangible commodities has no such 'licensing vs. sale' loop-hole that they can try to exploit. Further, many software companies are located in special economic zones that are "software exporting zones", and hence get large tax deductions.</p>
<p>In India, for instance, Microsoft is resisting payment of income tax for by routing all licensing to distributors in India through a shell company in Singapore and holding that Microsoft India had no income tax liabilities. <a href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-07-28/software-services/29824411_1_customs-duty-importer-ravi-venkatesan">Microsoft has been fined Rs. 2 crore</a> because it tried to separate the importing of software into India from the (more valuable) granting of licences to customers and pay only nominal customs duties on the former and under-declaring the value of the latter as zero. From nine Microsoft dealers a total of Rs 255 crore was collected as tax. Of the roughly Rs. 4000 crores loss that the BSA-IDC report claims, around 6% is realizable from just a single tax (customs duties) from 9 companies dealing in the products of one company. If we multiply this by all taxes (income tax included) amongst all the dealers of all the constituent companies of BSA, then the Indian government might recover more from taxes than is supposedly lost to piracy!</p>
<p>Elsewhere around the globe, the <a href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Double_Irish_Arrangement">'Double Irish' arrangement</a>, the <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39784907/ns/business-bloomberg_businessweek/">'Dutch Sandwich' route</a> and other such are used by MNC software companies to evade taxes. Just as there are tax havens, there are some IPR havens that cater to companies selling/licensing software and other such intangible commodities.</p>
<p>If only these software companies were to stop evading taxes in the countries in which they sell software, then the government's tax collections would automatically increase.</p>
<h2>Final idiocies, and conclusion</h2>
<p>In the BSA-IDC report, they write: "Assessing the relationship between software piracy rates and UN Human Development Index (a measure of average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development) suggests that countries with greater rates of software piracy tend to have lower levels of economic development. This further strengthens the hypothesis that IP rights (IPR) enforcement increases economic activity.".</p>
<p>This is as sensible as saying "countries with greater rates of industrial espionage (such as France, Germany, and USA) tend to have higher levels of economic development" strengthens the hypothesis that industrial espionage increases economic development. While it is empirically true that most countries with greater rates of software piracy have lower levels of economic development, it is equally true that countries with lower levels of economic development (being countries with poorer populations) have more software piracy. It is equally true that software piracy decreases if the cost of software decreases, as shown by the more carefully-conducted analysis in the Media Piracy in Emerging Economies report.<br />
</p>
<p>To use greater software piracy and lower economic development as evidence of the causal link between IPR enforcement and economic activity is to betray absolute ignorance about both economics and logic.</p>
<p>The startlingly poor level of analysis of the BSA-IDC report leaves no question that the conclusions were arrived at independently of the analysis. Such misleading analysis is worse than trash: it is downright dangerous as an instrument of policy setting.</p>
<p>To increase tax receipts, the government may as well start by making BSA's constituent companies pay all the taxes they owe.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/calling-out-the-bsa-on-bs'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/calling-out-the-bsa-on-bs</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshPiracyIntellectual Property RightsAccess to Knowledge2011-09-14T18:16:51ZBlog EntryIndian Copyright Act, 1957 (as amended by the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010)
https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/amended-copyright-act
<b>This is a version of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957, as it would appear if the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010, were adopted in toto. This has been produced to aid commentators, and is not meant to serve any other purpose. Errors may remain in it, despite my best efforts. If you find any, please e-mail <pranesh@cis-india.org>. (Version 0.96 / Last updated: Friday, May 28, 2010) </b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/amended-copyright-act'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/amended-copyright-act</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshCopyrightAccess to Knowledge2011-08-22T13:28:42ZFileIndian Copyright Act, 1957 (as amended by Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010)
https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/amended-copyright-act.html
<b></b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/amended-copyright-act.html'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/amended-copyright-act.html</a>
</p>
No publisheradminIntellectual Property RightsCopyrightAccess to Knowledge2011-08-24T06:58:10ZFileGlobal IP Conference 2011, Brochure
https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/global-ip-conference
<b>A brochure of the event.</b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/global-ip-conference'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/global-ip-conference</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaConferenceAccess to Knowledge2011-08-22T13:27:19ZFile