Centre for Internet and Society

Intermediary Liability & Freedom of Expression — Executive Summary

Rishabh Dara — 2016-04-24T11:54:22Z

This document provides a critique of “The Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011 and proposes an alternate set of Rules.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/intermediary-liability-and-foe-executive-summary.pdf

Second Freedom Online Conference in Nairobi

praskrishna — 2012-10-04T06:23:26Z

The second freedom online conference organized by the Ministry of Information and Communications, Republic of Kenya in partnership with the government of Netherlands was held at the UN complex in Gigiri, Nairobi on September 6 and 7, 2012. Pranesh Prakash was a panelist in the session on Access to Internet: Challenges and Opportunities.

The following themes were discussed at the event:

ICT, entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility
The use of mobile entrepreneurship for economic and social development in East Africa is a good example of the need for accessible, fast and open Internet. Discussing the potential for best practices in Kenya and other countries, regulatory issues they face, adherence to codes of conduct for corporate social responsibility and related themes would be part of this topic discussion.

Censorship vs freedom of expression, assembly and association
There are numerous examples of countries censoring the Internet by blocking websites, demanding that Internet Service Providers remove certain content, forcing users to practice self-censorship by exerting pressure, fining, arresting, convicting, or otherwise obstructing bloggers, netizens, journalists and other users, thus breaching their legitimate right to the freedom of expression on the Internet.

Access to the Internet: challenges and opportunities
Providing access to the Internet in the first place is a key issue not only for Africa, but also for countries in other continents where access and usage of the Internet varies sharply between urban and rural areas. The developments in this field, including regulation facing providers of the Internet (ISP's, ICT companies, and other intermediaries), infrastructure, innovation, regional and international structures, and how governments could facilitate better access will be part of the discussion.

The two-day conference brought together over 400 stakeholders from the global ICT industry to discuss issues affecting freedom of internet users in Kenya and across the world and come up with policy recommendations for possible enactment by respective governments.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Communications Commission of Kenya, Google, et.al. were the sponsors for this event.

Click to read the Conference Program

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/second-freedom-online-conference-in-nairobi

August 2012 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-09-11T14:53:44Z

Welcome to the newsletter issue of August 2012 from the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). The present issue features an analysis of the latest list of sites blocked by the Indian government from August 18, 2012 to August 21, 2012, the India Report for Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012, and press coverage related to the recent North East exodus.

Internet Governance

The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes:

Special Section on Freedom of Expression

We usually cover Freedom of Expression under Internet Governance. However, in the month of August there has been much discussion regarding the North East exodus from Bangalore and the blocking of a number of websites by the Indian government from August 18 to 21, 2012. This special section covers reportage and original content from CIS:

Featured Research

Analysing Latest List of Blocked Sites (Communalism & Rioting Edition) (by Pranesh Prakash): Pranesh Prakash did a preliminary analysis on a leaked list of the websites blocked from August 18, 2012 till August 21, 2012 by the Indian government. There were a total of 309 specific items (those being URLs, Twitter accounts, img tags, blog posts, blogs, and a handful of websites) that were blocked. In this analysis, Pranesh examines why these have been blocked, are the blocks legitimate, are there any egregious mistakes, why the whole list hasn’t been put up, why can one access items that are supposed to be blocked, what should the government have done, etc. The analysis was quoted/cross-posted in the following places: Wall Street Journal (August 25, 2012), The Hindu (August 24, 2012), LiveMint (August 24, 2012), Global Voices (August 24, 2012), Outlook (August 23, 2012), FirstPost.India (August 23, 2012), IBN Live (August 23, 2012), News Click (August 23, 2012), Medianama (August 23, 2012) and KAFILA (August 23, 2012).

Columns

To regulate Net intermediaries or not is the question (by Sunil Abraham, Deccan Herald, August 26, 2012): “Given the disruption to public order caused by the mass exodus of North-Eastern Indians from several cities, the government has had for the first time in many years, a legitimate case to crackdown on Internet intermediaries and their users.”

Social media, SMS are not why NE students left Bangalore (by Nishant Shah, First Post, August 25, 2012): “I woke up one morning to find that I was living in a city of crisis. Bangalore, where the largest public preoccupations to date have been about bad roads, stray dogs, and occasionally, the lack of night-life, the city was suddenly a space that people wanted to flee and occupy simultaneously.”
What lurks beneath the Network (by Nishant Shah, Down to Earth, August 24, 2012): “There is a series of buzzwords that have become a naturalised part of discussions around digital social media—participation, collaboration, peer-2-peer, mobilisation, etc. Especially in the post Arab Spring world (and our own home-grown Anna Hazare spectacles), there is this increasing belief in the innate possibilities of social media as providing ways by which the world as we know it shall change for the better. Young people are getting on to the streets and demanding their rights to the future.”
Censoring the Internet: A brief manual (by Sunil Abraham, Tehelka, August 23, 2012): “Blocking websites on the Internet should be proportionate to harm they intend. However, the government of India's approach is against the principles of natural justice.”
The Perils of 'Hactivism' (by Chinmayi Arun, LiveMint, August 20, 2012): “Civil disobedience includes accepting the penalty for breaking the law. Untraceable hackers are far removed from this ethic.”

Foreign Media Coverage

India blocks more than 250 Web sites for inciting hate, panic (by Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post on August 20, 2012): “A blanket ban does not necessarily lead to a reduction in the circulation of rumors because people become more vulnerable in a communication vacuum.”— Sunil Abraham.
India’s ethnic clashes intensify within social-media maelstrom (by Stephanie Nolen, Globe Mail, August 23, 2012): “Now for a change, the government has legitimate grounds to censor speech...but they’ve cried wolf on so many occasions before.” — Sunil Abraham.
India limits social media after civil unrest (by Mark Magnier, Australian Financial Review, August 24, 2012): “Before, the government’s had no grounds for censorship, it was only acting on the bruised egos of bureaucrats and officials... this time, it’s got a legitimate right given the disruption of public order. But it hasn’t done so very effectively.” — Sunil Abraham.
New Delhi Expands Curbs on Web Content (by R Jai Krishna and Rumman Ahmed, Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2012): “The government's move to block several Twitter handles is a clear case of administrative overreach...This action means citizens are less likely to believe that the government can use its powers responsibly.” — Sunil Abraham.
Govt in line of fire over web censorship (by Surabhi Agarwal, Livemint, August 24, 2012): “Both Kanchan Gupta and Swapan Dasgupta seem to be having a right wing ideology, but while the former’s account is blocked the latter’s is not...The difference is on the kind of content which has been posted.” — Pranesh Prakash.
India's social media crackdown reveals clumsy govt machinery (by David Lalmalsawma, Reuters, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Internet expert criticizes Indian cyber blockades (by Muneeza Naqvi, Associated Press, August 24, 2012): “The government has gone overboard and many of its efforts are legally questionable.” — Pranesh Prakash. This was also covered in Bloomberg Businessweek (August 24, 2012), Khaleej Times (August 24, 2012), ABC News (August 24, 2012), Seattle Times (August 24, 2012), Vancouver Sun (August 24, 2012), Kansas City. (August 24, 2012), Times Colonist (August 24, 2012), Merced Sun-Star (August 24, 2012), Yahoo News (August 24, 2012), SanLuisObispo.com (August 24, 2012), Terrorism Watch (August 25, 2012), Sci-Tech Today (August 26, 2012).
How ISPs block websites and why it doesn’t help (by Gopal Sathe, Livemint, August 24, 2012): “Even though many of the items on that list do deserve (in my opinion) to be removed [...] the people and companies hosting the material should have been asked to remove it, instead of ordering the ISPs to block them.” — Pranesh Prakash.
India’s Internet Curbs Under Legal Cloud (by Rumman Ahmed and R Jai Krishna, Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2012):” The four orders that were sent to the ISPs don’t say under which section or under what power these orders are being sent...They were sent without invoking any statute or without invoking any law.” — Pranesh Prakash.
After Violence in India, a Crackdown Online (by Gardiner Harris, New York Times, August 25, 2012): “I don’t see this as politically motivated censorship...I see this as gross ineptitude by the government.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Inde: la tentative de contrôler l'internet est "illégale" (Agence France Presse, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
India threatens action against Twitter for ethnic violence 'rumors' (originally posted by Ben Sheppard in AFP and published in the China Post, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Blocked websites: Where India flawed (CIOL, August 23, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
India: Social Media Censorship to Contain ‘Cyber-Terrorism'? (by Aparna Ray, Global Voices, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Delhi defends Internet blocking (Gulf Today, August 25, 2012): “The officials who are trusted with this don’t know the law or modern technology well enough.” — Pranesh Prakash.
India Blocks News Website Pages for 'Spreading Fear' over Assam Violence (by Gianluca Mezzofiore, International Business Times, August 24, 2012): “The government's highest priority should have been to counter the rumours and it did a really bad job of that.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Internet clamp outrage (Gulf Daily, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
India faces Twitter backlash over Internet clampdown (by Devidutta Tripathy and Satarupa Bhattacharjya, Reuters, August 24, 2012): “This isn't about political censorship. This is about the government not knowing how to do online regulation properly.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Indian government defends Internet blocking (AFP, August 23, 2012): “I hope that this fiasco shows the folly of excessive censorship and encourages the government to make better use of social networks and technology to reach out to people.” — Pranesh Prakash. This was cross-posted in the following: The National (August 25, 2012), MSN News (August 24, 2012), StarAfrica.com (August 24, 2012), Jakarta Globe (August 24, 2012).
Criticism mounts over India censorship (by James Crabtree in Mumbai and Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco, Financial Times, August 24, 2012): “I am not questioning their original motives, but I do think this is excessive and incompetent censorship.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Facebook's Delicate Dance With Delhi On Censorship (by Mark Bergen, Forbes, August 29, 2012): “Perhaps the Indian government has wasted, frittered away goodwill...It has cried ‘wolf’ so many times that this time the internet intermediaries are not taking them as seriously as they should.” — Sunil Abraham.
Internet Analysts Question India’s Efforts to Stem Panic (by Vikas Bajaj, New York Times, August 21, 2012): “The Internet intermediaries are responding slowly because now they have to trawl through their networks and identify hate speech.” — Sunil Abraham. This was cross-posted in NDTV on August 22, 2012. A version of this article appeared in print on August 22, 2012, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Internet Moves by India to Stem Rumors and Panic Raise Questions.
India limits social media after civil unrest (by Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2012 and cross-posted in Channel 6 News on August 24, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted.
India Debates Misuse of Social Media (by Anjana Pasricha, Voice of America, August 21, 2012 and re-posted in Chosunilbo on September 4, 2012): “Social media websites and other Internet intermediaries should have been asked by the government to run banner advertising or some other form of messaging that revealed the lack of truth in the rumors that were circulating.” — Sunil Abraham.
Officials Raise Questions over Indian Government’s Efforts (by Bruce Totolos, French Tribune, August 22, 2012). “The government acted appropriately, but without sufficient sophistication.” — Sunil Abraham.
India seeks a tighter grip on social media (United Press International, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

National Media Coverage

Internet expert Pranesh Prakash criticizes Indian cyber blockades (Economic Times, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Govt orders blocking of 300 specific URLs including 16 Twitter accounts (Times of India, August 23, 2012): “The blocking of many of the items on the list are legally questionable and morally indefensible, even while a large number of the items ought to be removed.” — Pranesh Prakash.
NE exodus: List containing 309 blocked URLs leaks online (tech 2, August 23, 2012): Pranesh Prakash's analysis is quoted.
Govt cracks down on Twitter (Hindustan Times, August 24, 2012): “The blocking was done without due process of law...the government should have engaged with the social media platforms since a majority — 217 out of 310 — of the block orders were aimed at Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Twitter users hit back at government ban (originally posted in Reuters and carried in the Hindustan Times, August 24, 2012): “This isn't about political censorship. This is about the government not knowing how to do online regulation properly.” — Pranesh Prakash.
When #GOIBlocks, twitterati fly off their ‘handles’ (Hindustan Times, August 26, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s tweet is quoted.
Regulating the Internet by fiat (by V Sridhar, Hindu, August 26, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Twitter handles: How and why govt erred and what it can do to be smarter & more effective (by TV Mahalingam and Shantanu Nandan Sharma, Economic Times, August 26, 2012): “Perhaps, for the first time, the Indian government had legitimate reasons to censor speech.” — Sunil Abraham.
Some ISPs block Wordpress domain across India (tech 2, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Details emerge on government blockade of websites (Hindu, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
India faces Twitter backlash over Internet clampdown (INDOLink, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
India Blocks Facebook, Twitter, Mass Texts in Response to Unrest (by Simon Roughneen, Media Shift, August 28, 2012): “In the older forms of governance, which were imagined through a broadcast model, the government was at the center of the information wheel, managing and mediating what information reached different parts of the country. In the [peer-to-peer] world, where the government no longer has that control, it is now trying different ways by which it can reinforce its authority and centrality to the information ecosystem. Which means that there is going to be a series of failures and models that don't work.” — Nishant Shah.
Tata Photon unblocks Wordpress.com (by Rohini Lakshane, tech 2, August 30, 2012): “This is not the first time an ISP has gone overboard in implementing censorship, be it copyright issues, piracy or inflammatory content. In 2006, the government had chastised ISPs for over-censoring content and blocking unintended websites and pages...ISPs have numerous grouses against the government. They do not possess the technical capabilities to implement the government's orders, at times, whether about surveillance or censorship.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Northeast exodus: Is there a mechanism to pre-screen social media content? (by Wahid Bukhari, Merinews.com, August 23, 2012): “Given the amount of content uploaded on the larger social networks, pre-screening content is just not possible, while removal upon complaint is. They don't have editors like newspapers do; importantly, they shouldn't.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Haphazard censorship? Leaked list of blocked websites in India (IBN Live, August 23, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Government asks Twitter to block fake 'PMO India' accounts; site fails to respond (Economic Times, August 23, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Videos

FTN: Is it time to regulate social media? (IBN Live, August 21, 2012): Sunil Abraham, Pavan Duggal, A Mukherji and Nikhil Pahwa spoke to CNN-IBN Deputy Editor Sagarika Ghose in Face the Nation episode that was telecasted in IBNLive on August 21, 2012. Sunil said “if one looks at the initial orders that the government sent these intermediaries those were very broad instructions. The order was addressed to all intermediaries under the IT Act.” Watch the full video on IBN Live.
Govt vs Tweeple: Has clampdown hit free speech? (NDTV, August 23, 2012): Has the Government crossed the line by ordering the blocking of several Twitter accounts, many belonging to prominent journalists? The debate was featured in NDTV on August 23, 2012. Sunil Abraham spoke to Sonia Singh of NDTV. Sunil said that “we should focus on designing of the censorship regime in the country and the lack of compliance with the principles of natural justice.” Watch the full video on NDTV.
Is the govt caught in the 'censorship' web? (NDTV, August 26, 2012): In “We the People” Pranesh Prakash responded to Barkha Dutt’s question on what does a government do in a time of social unrest. See the full debate on NDTV.

Events Organised

Role of the US Tech Companies in Government Surveillance: A Lecture by Christopher Soghoian (CIS, Bangalore, August 27, 2012): Christopher Soghoian gave a lecture on the role companies play in assisting government surveillance.
The Asian Edge: 2012 Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society Summer School: The 2nd Biannual Inter Asia Cultural Studies (IACS) Summer School was hosted in Bangalore by CIS and the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society.
Biometric Identification: Specified Error, Accuracy and Efficiency, Considered for the Operations of the UIDAI — A Talk by Hans Varghese Mathews (CIS, Bangalore, August 17, 2012): Hans Varghese Mathews gave a public lecture on biometric identification.

Events Participated

Sixth Meeting of the two Sub-Groups on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice AP Shah (Committee Room No. 228, Yojana Bhawan, Sansad Marg, New Delhi, August 31, 2012): Sunil Abraham participated in the meeting.
APNIC 34 Conference (Phnompenh, Cambodia, August 23 – 31, 2012): Sunil Abraham was a panelist along with Ang Peng Hwa, Paul Wilson, Duangthip Chomprang and Raul Echeberria in the session on Internet Governance Plenary. The event was organised by APNIC.

Events Hosted

Meetup for Bangalore's designers (CIS, Bangalore, August 11, 2012): CIS hosted the meet-up in Bangalore.
Visit by students from Hindustan University, Chennai (CIS, Bangalore, August 16, 2012): Sunil Abraham and Elonnai Hickok gave a lecture to students from the Hindustan University.
Interface Intimacies (TERI Complex, Bangalore, August 18 – 20, 2012): CIS conducted a research workshop with Audrey Yue and Namita Malhotra.

Upcoming Events

Thinking with Data@CIS (CIS, Bangalore, September 16 – 18, 2012): The Thinking with Data course offered at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) will be screened at CIS, Bangalore. The screening will be followed by online discussions with the faculty through Skype or Google+ Hangouts. Screening starts from September 12.
Cartonama Conference (MLR Convention Centre, JP Nagar, Bangalore, September 22, 2012): The Cartonama Conference is centred around geospatial data, mapping and location based services. HasGeek supported by CIS is organising this event.
UK DNA Database and the European Court of Human Rights: Lessons that India can Learn from Its Mistakes (Alternative Law Forum, Infantry Road, Shivaji Nagar, Bangalore, September 24, 2012): CIS in collaboration with Alternative Law Forum invites the public to a talk with international experts, Helen Wallace from GeneWatch, UK and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics in the United States.

Telecom

While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:

Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India

Ford Foundation has given a grant of USD 2,00,000 to CIS to build expertise in the area of telecommunications in India. The knowledge repository deals with these modules: Introduction to Telecommunications, Telecommunications Infrastructure and Technologies, Government of India Regulatory Framework for Telecom, Telecommunication and the Market, Universal Access and Accessibility, The International Telecommunications Union and other international bodies, Broadcasting, Emerging Topics and Way Forward. Dr. Surendra Pal, Satya N Gupta, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Payal Malik, Dr. Rakesh Mehrotra and Dr. Nadeem Akhtar are the expert reviewers.

The following are the new outputs:

Auctioning and Allocation of Spectrum (by Snehashish Ghosh): Auction of spectrums was introduced in the telecommunication market after the failure of the administrative process of allocating spectrum. Auctions use a price mechanism to allocate spectrum. Auction of spectrum can be used to increase efficiency and earn maximum revenue.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 (by Snehashish Ghosh): The main objective of the TRAI Act was to establish the TRAI and the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal. Snehashish also touches upon the amendment to the TRAI Act, government control over TRAI, scheme of the TRAI Act, constitution of TRAI, its powers and functions, grounds and procedures for appeal to the tribunal, etc.
Broadband Wireless Access – Standards (by Jürgen Kock): Jürgen tells us about the broadband wireless access standards, why we need technical standards, who define BWA standards, WiMAX standards and long term evolution.
Mesh Networks (by Ravikiran Annaswamy): Ravikiran tells us the definition of Mesh Networks, its importance, applications and the things to explore in future.
National Telecom Policy, 2012 (by Snehashish Ghosh): The National Telecom Policy, 2012 was approved by the Union Cabinet on May 31, 2012. Snehashish tells us about the vision of the National Telecom Policy, 2012, its background, the strategies (broadband rural telephony and universal service obligation fund), licensing, convergence and value-added services, spectrum management, etc.
New Telecom Policy, 1999 (by Snehashish Ghosh): The New Telecom Policy, 1999 was formulated on the basis of the report of Group on Telecommunication. In this unit, Snehashish talks about the objectives of the Policy, its targets, the new category of service providers, role of the regulator, other mandates to the Policy, amendment to the New Telecom Policy, 1999, etc.
National Telecom Policy, 1994 (by Snehashish Ghosh): The National Telecom Policy, 1994 was formulated for the purpose of opening up the Indian markets for foreign direct investment as well as domestic investment in the telecom sector. Snehashish throws light on the objectives of the National Telecom Policy, 1994, the status of telecom services prior to the implementation of the aforesaid Policy; value added services, hardware and technological aspects, basic services, and outcomes of the National Telecom Policy.

Column in Business Standard

Decision Analysis for Interest Rates - II (Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, August 2, 2012): “India needs to make practical choices that prioritise growth. This is the second column. The previous column was published in the Business Standard on July 5, 2012. It explained how lower interest rates could improve growth by increasing net profits.”

Access to Knowledge

The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:

Key Research

Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012 — India Report (by Pranesh Prakash): The India Report for Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012 was published on the A2K Network website. According to the report, India's Copyright Act is a relatively balanced instrument that recognises the interests of consumers through its broad private use exception, and by facilitating the compulsory licensing of works that would otherwise be unavailable. However, the compulsory licensing provision have not been utilized so far, because of both a lack of knowledge and more importantly because of the stringent conditions attached to them.

Press Coverage

Copyright Law: More Than a Moral Obligation (by Jaya Bhattacharji Rose, Businessworld, August 9, 2012): “So far, things have worked well because sepia-tinted photographs have generally become part of the public domain. But now, only photographs by photographers who died before 1951 are part of the public domain. This has shrivelled up the public domain in photographs since it is even more difficult to trace the photographer...than to estimate the age of a photograph, determining whether a photograph is in the public domain is laden with uncertainty. The use of historical photos in books (and Wikipedia) will be badly affected.”— Pranesh Prakash.

Accessibility

India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies:

Blog Entry

Ring Side View: Update on WIPO Negotiations on the Treaty for the Visually Impaired (by Rahul Cherian): As the negotiations between Member States progressed it became clear that the United States and the European Union were blocking the Treaty while everybody else was pushing hard for the Treaty. The United States and the European Union were pushing for some form of non-binding instrument that would be more in the nature of a recommendation. Further coverage of this is at Huffington Post and in the Guardian.

Digital Natives

Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of 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 critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:

Public Talk

Decoding Digital Natives (Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, August 31, 2012): Nishant Shah gave a public lecture.

Openness

The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:

Event Hosted

Bangalore Force.com August Meetup (CIS, Bangalore, August 19, 2012): John Barnes, CTO Model Metrics gave a lecture at the event organised by Bangalore Force.com.
Technology Evangelists and Religious Evangelists — A Talk by Katherine Sydenham (CIS, Bangalore, August 10, 2012): Katherine Sydenham from the University of Michigan School gave a lecture.
Data-Driven Journalism, Data Literacy & Open Government — Talk at CIS (CIS, Bangalore, August 1, 2012): The event was co-organised by Open Knowledge Foundation and CIS. Lucy Chambers and Laura Newman gave an informal talk on ‘Data-Driven Journalism, Data Literacy, and Open Government'.

CIS is hiring
*Jobs*
CIS is seeking applications from interested candidates for the following posts:

Research Manager: CIS is seeking an individual, full-time, for a period of 12 months, beginning from October 2012. The Research Manager is expected to contribute to conceptualising, managing and executing research projects in the field of Internet and Society, build knowledge networks of researchers towards collaborative and open knowledge production and dissemination, developing and executing the monitoring and evaluation processes for humanities and social sciences based research, supporting and managing academic, popular and hybrid publishing projects from existing and new research and initiate innovative and creative areas and methodologies of studying the Internet and its practices in India and the larger Global South, to develop key research clusters and networks. Send in your applications to admin@cis-india.org.
Researcher/Editor (Accessibility): CIS is hiring for the full-time position of a researcher for its accessibility programme. The job will entail working on researching on national and international policies and best practices in the field of accessibility of information and technology for persons with disabilities. To apply, please send your CV and three examples of writing to nirmita@cis-india.org
Programme Director – Access to Knowledge: CIS is seeking a Programme Director for its New Delhi office. The Programme Director will manage CIS’s Access to Knowledge programme which is funded by the Wikimedia Foundation, to support the growth of Wikipedia and its sister projects and to advance access to free knowledge in India. The Programme Director will partner with the large Wikimedia community in India to focus on Indic and English languages and will manage a team of four staff members.
Programme Officer – Internet Governance: CIS is seeking an individual with a strong background in legal research and policy work to be part of its internet governance (IG) programme. The candidates must have good knowledge of Indian and international law on freedom of expression and privacy, demonstrable research skills, have strong communication skills and be media savvy with the ability to convey complex legal issues clearly to a general audience, open to travel and work independently.

To apply for the posts of Programme Director and Programme Officers, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org) or Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org) with three references.

About CIS

CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. Over the last four years our policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos. With the Government of India we have done policy research for Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.

CIS is an accredited NGO at WIPO and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

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CIS is grateful to its donors, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the 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.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2012-bulletin

Government to hold talks with stakeholders on Internet censorship

praskrishna — 2012-09-04T03:39:32Z

In an unprecedented move, the government, through the Department of Telecommunications and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, has agreed to initiate dialogue on Internet censorship with mega Internet companies, social media giants such as Google and Facebook, members of civil society, technical community, media, ISPs and legal experts.

This article by Shalini Singh was published in the Hindu on September 4, 2012. Pranesh Prakash's analysis is quoted.

The triggers for the discussion, which will be held on Wednesday, are the riots in Assam, Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh, as well as the mass exodus of north-east Indians from Bangalore, which resulted in bringing the government, civil society organisations and the media to a flashpoint.

Two of India’s seniormost officers in the area of Internet censorship, DoT Secretary R. Chandrashekhar and Director General, CERT-IN, Gulshan Rai will engage with a range of stakeholders in a two-hour meeting titled ‘Legitimate Restrictions on Freedom of Online Speech: The need for balance – from Deadlock to Dialogue.’

Other panellists include representatives from Google and Facebook; Pranesh Prakash from the Centre for Internet and Society (a civil society group); Prabir Purkayasta, Delhi Science Forum (technical community); Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, president, Foundation for Media Professionals; Rajesh Chharia, president, Internet Service Providers Association of India; and Apar Gupta, an advocate dealing with cyber issues.

One analysis by the CIS has shown that 309 specific items, including URLs, Twitter accounts, IMG tags, blog posts and blogs were blocked. Complaints arose when blocking a page resulted in the blocking of an entire website — which has scores or hundreds of web pages. The government maintained that this was necessary as there was a sense of crisis. Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde insisted that the government was “taking strict action only against those accounts or people which are causing damage or spreading rumours.” However, the collateral damage of the move was the Twitter accounts of several people, including journalists like Kanchan Gupta, being blocked.

“Mass censorship is like killing a fly with a sledgehammer. Rather than blocking the sites, the government should have used the same media, Facebook, Twitter and Google to counter terrorism and hate speech. I am glad that they are now open to dialogue,” says Mr. Thakurta.

“It is an extremely productive move as it will generate awareness among content providers, government and users. In the absence of any dialogue, everyone was just sticking to their own positions without listening to the other stakeholders’ point of view,” says Mr. Chharia.

The meeting is to bring several stakeholders in dialogue on a single platform.

Nearly 50 other experts from industry, mobile service providers, Internet companies, intermediaries, academia and some international organisations as well as multilaterals are expected to join the conference, which will be held at 2.30 p.m. on September 4 at FICCI.

While this is seen as a brave attempt by some, there are an equal number of sceptics who believe that the discussion may not yield the desired result given the national security objectives governing law enforcement agencies on the one hand and the desire of users, media and civil society to preserve free speech on the other. Clearly, ISPs, Internet companies and social media are in a tough spot since they face legal obligations on legitimate orders for blocking on one hand while needing to protect their user privacy and rights to unhindered access to information.

If successful, it is possible that this dialogue will ensure that legitimate restrictions do not slide into illegitimate censorship.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/www-the-hindu-com-shalini-singh-sep-4-2012-govt-to-hold-talks-with-stakeholders-on-internet-censorship

Making Mobile Phones and Services Accessible for Persons with Disabilities

nirmita — 2013-04-26T05:00:19Z

This report is published by the International Telecommunication Union in cooperation with G3ict – The Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies. Nirmita Narasimhan and Axel Leblois are the lead authors. The contributors include Deepti Bharthur, Lakshmi Haridas, Pranav Lal, Peter Looms, Roopakshi Pathania, Deva Prasad, Susan Schorr, and Mukesh Sharma.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/making-mobile-phone-and-services-accessible-for-persons-with-disabilities.pdf

India's Internet Jam

pranesh — 2014-03-20T12:41:58Z

As authorities continue to clamp down on digital freedom, politicians and corporations are getting a taste for censorship too. Pranesh Prakash reports.

The article was published in Index on Censorship in August 2012. This is an unedited version of the article.

In a matter of three days, in August 2012, India’s central government ordered internet service providers to block around 309 pieces of online content – mostly individual web pages, YouTube videos and Facebook groups. The blocking orders came days after people originally from north-eastern India living in Bangalore began fleeing the city in fear of attack. Rumours that some Muslims in the city were planning violence in retaliation for recent clashes between the indigenous Bodo tribe and Muslim settlers in Assam spread quickly via text messages and through the media. The Nepali migrant community in Bangalore also received text messages from their families, warning them that they might be mistaken for north-eastern Indians and also be targeted. Indian Railway, catering to the huge demand, organised special trains to Assam for the crowds of people.

Freedom of speech is enshrined in the Constitution of India, which came into force in 1952, and specifically in Article 19(1)(a), which guarantees that ‘all citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression’. While in the United States, it wasn’t until the 1920s that the Supreme Court struck down a law or governmental action on freedom of speech grounds, in India, just one year after the constitution was adopted, government actions against both left- and right-wing political speech were struck down for violating Article 19(1)(a). Enraged, the Congress government then amended Article 19, expanding the list of restrictions to the right to free expression. These included speech pertaining to ‘friendly relations with foreign states’, ‘public order’ and ‘incitement to an offence’. In 1963, in response to the 1962 war with China, the ‘sovereignty and integrity of India’ was also added, taking the number of categories of permissible restrictions up to eight. While the constitution categorically stipulates that no further restrictions should be imposed, courts have on occasion added to the list (privacy, for instance) through judicial interpretation without explicitly stating that they are doing so. Comparisons are often drawn between the constitution’s ‘reasonable restrictions’ and the categorical prohibition enshrined in the US Constitution’s First Amendment: ‘Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press’ – a meaningless comparison as there are indeed many categories of speech that are seen as being protected under the US constitution and even speech that is protected may be restrained in a number of ways.

Today, there are a number of laws that regulate freedom of speech in India, from the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Victorian legislation meant to codify crimes, to the Information Technology Act, which was amended in 2008 and in some cases makes behaviour that is perfectly legal offline into a criminal activity when online.

Sedition and social harmony

The Indian Penal Code criminalises sedition; speech intended to cause enmity between communities; speech intended to ‘outrage religious feelings of any class’; selling, singing or displaying anything obscene; and defamation. It also prohibits ‘causing someone, by words or gestures, to believe they’re the target of divine displeasure’. Each of these provisions has been misused, as there are indeed many catagories of speech that are not seen as being protected under thw US constitution, and even speech that is protected may be restrained in a number of ways.

In recent years, sedition charges have been brought against human rights activists (Binayak Sen and Arundhati Roy), journalists (Seema Azad), cartoonists (Aseem Trivedi) and protesters (thousands of villagers in Koodankulam and neighbouring villages who demonstrated against a nuclear reactor in their area). It is usually the higher judiciary that dismisses such cases, while the lower judiciary seems to be supplicant to the bizarre claims of government, the police and complainants. Similarly, the higher judiciary has had to intervene in cases where books and films have been banned for ‘causing enmity between communities’ or for intentionally hurting the sentiments of a religious group.

Of the last six books banned by the Maharashtra government, all but one (RV Bhasin’s Islam: A Concept of Political World Invasion by Muslims) have been overturned by the Mumbai High Court. In one case, the court criticised the government for using a violent protest (organised by the Sambhaji Brigade, one of many right-wing political groups that frequently stage demonstrations) as reason enough for banning an academic book on the Maratha king Shivaji. In its decision, the judge pointed out that it is the government’s job to provide protection against such violence. Given India’s history of communal violence there is indeed a need for the law to address incitement to violence – but these laws should be employed at the actual time of incitement, not after the violence has already taken place. But, as recent events have shown, the government is willing to censor ‘harmful’ books and films and less likely to take action against individuals who incite violence during demonstrations.

Online speech and the law

There are regular calls for the government to introduce legislation that deals specifically with online behaviour, despite the fact that the vast majority of the laws regarding sedition and social harmony apply online as well as offline. One example is the recent move to introduce amendments to the Indecent Representation of Women Act (1986) so that it applies to ‘audiovisual media and material in electronic form’.

But the government’s attempts to control online speech began long before the introduction of any internet-specific legislation. Indeed, when state-monopoly internet service provider VSNL censored content, it did so under the terms of a contract it had entered with its customers, not under any law. In 1998, a mailing list called Middle East Socialist Network was blocked on national security grounds. In 1999, Pakistani newspaper Dawn’s website was blocked during the Kargil conflict. In both of the latter cases, the government relied on the Indian Telegraph Act (1885) to justify its actions, though that act contains no explicit provisions for such censorship.

In 2000, the Information Technology (IT) Act was passed and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) was created, which (unlawfully) assumed the role of official online censor. Importantly, while the IT Act did
make the publication of obscene content online illegal (though it already was under the IPC), it did not grant permission for authorities to block websites. Despite this, an executive order passed on 27 February 2003 granted CERT-In the power to block. Had this been challenged in a court, it may well have been deemed unconstitutional since, in the absence of a statutory law, an executive order cannot reverse the freedom granted under Article 19. And although the telecommunications sector in India was being liberalised around this time, as part of their licence agreements, all internet service providers (ISPs) have to agree to block links upon being requested to do so by the government. In 2008, when the IT Act was amended, it clearly stated that the government can block websites not only when it deems it necessary to do so but also when it is deemed expedient in relation to matters of public interest, national security and with regard to maintaining friendly relations with foreign states. The power to block does not, however, extend to obscenity or defamation offences. At the same time, further categories of speech crimes were introduced, along with other new offences, including the electronic delivery of ‘offensive messages through communication services’ or anything ‘for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience’. This has often been abused, including by the chief minister of West Bengal, who issued proceedings against a professor for forwarding an email containing a cartoon that mocked him. Under this draconian and unconstitutional provision, the police do not need an arrest warrant and the punishment can be as much as three years’ imprisonment, longer than even the punishment for causing death by negligence. The amendment also granted the government extensive powers to monitor and intercept online speech and data traffic, greatly extending the powers provided under colonial laws such as the Indian Telegraph Act (1885). As legislation has been introduced, the penalties for online offences have increased significantly. For example, the penalty for the first-time publication of an obscene ebook is up to five years in prison and a 1,000,000 rupee (US$18,800) fine, compared with two years’ imprisonment and a 2,000 rupee (US$38) fine as stipulated in the IPC for publishing that same material in print version. New laws introduced in 2009 pertain specifically to blocking (section 69a), interception, decryption and monitoring (69 and 69b) and are in accordance with the constitution. However, the amendments were brought in without any attempt at transparency or accountability.

Power in the hands of intermediaries

In April 2011, despite critical submissions received during its public consultation, the government announced new ‘intermediary guidelines’ and ‘cyber cafe rules’, both of which have adverse effects on freedom of expression. The rules, which were issued by the Department of Information and Technology (DIT), grant not only the government but citizens significant powers to censor the internet. They require all intermediaries – companies that handle content, including web hosts, telecom companies, domain name providers and other such intermediaries – to remove ‘disparaging’ content that could ‘harm minors in any way’. They prohibit everything from jokes (if the person sharing the joke does not own copyright to it) to anything that is disparaging. In a recent case, in December 2011, thousands of people used the hashtag #=IdiotKapilSibal on Twitter to criticise the minister of communications and information technology, Kapil Sibal, who had requested that officials from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Facebook in India pre-screen online content. These guidelines and rules are badly drafted and unconstitutional, as they go beyond the limits allowed under Article 19 in the constitution. And do so in a manner that lacks any semblance of due process and
fairness. They are inconsistent with offline laws, too: for example, because the guidelines also refer to gambling, the government of Sikkim can publish advertisements for its PlayWin lottery in newspapers but not online. It’s far easier to persuade officials to remove online material than it is to persuade them to remove books from a bookstore or artwork from a gallery. Police are only empowered to seize books if the government or a court has been persuaded that it violates a law and issues such an order. This fact is always recorded, in government or legal records, police files or in the press. By contrast, web content can be removed on the basis of one email complaint; intermediaries are required to ‘disable’ the relevant content within 36 hours of the complaint. A court order is not required, nor is there a requirement to notify the owner of the content that a complaint has been received or that material has been removed. The effect is that of almost invisible censorship.

This assertion – that it only takes one complaint – may seem far-fetched. But a researcher from the Centre for Internet and Society sent complaints to several intermediaries on a number of occasions, resulting in content being removed in a majority of cases. If intermediaries choose not to take action, they risk losing their immunity against punishment for content. In essence, the law is the equivalent of punishing a post office for the letters that people send via the postal service.

The amendments were brought in without any attempt at transparency or accountability

In 1984, Indira Gandhi was forced to sue Salman Rushdie for defamation in a London court in order to ensure one sentence was expurgated from his novel Midnight’s Children. Today Gandhi wouldn’t need to win a lawsuit against publishers. She would merely have to send a complaint to websites selling the book and it would have to be removed from sale. It is easier to block Akbari.in – the online newspaper run by Vinay Rai, who filed a criminal complaint against multiple internet companies in December 2011 for all manner of materials – than it is to prevent its print publication. There is no penalty for frivolous complaints, such as those sent by researchers from the Centre for Internet and Society, nor is there any requirement for records to be kept of who has removed what. Such great powers of censorship without any penalties for abuse of these powers are a sure-fire way of moving towards greater intolerance, with the internet – that republic of opinions and expressions – being a casualty.

Censorship outside the law

Since 2011, governments and private companies alike have increasingly engaged in internet censorship. In April 2011, in response to a right to information request, the DIT released a list of 11 websites that had been officially blocked under the IT Act since 2009, when the amended act came into force. But, according to a recent Google Transparency Report, government requests for the removal of material far exceeds that number. The report reveals that the government (including state governments) requested that Google remove 358 items from January 2011 to June 2011. Of this number, only eight were considered to be hate speech and only one item was related to concerns over national security. The remaining material, 255 items (71 per cent of all requests), was taken down because of ‘government criticism’. Criticism of the government is protected under the country’s constitution but, nonetheless, Google complied with take-down requests 51 per cent of the time. It’s clear, then, that governmental censorship is far more widespread than officially acknowledged.

In July 2011, Reliance Entertainment obtained a ‘John Doe’ order to protect its intellectual property rights with regard to its film Singham, which was scheduled for release that month. The order prohibited both online and offline infringement of copyright for the film and was sent to a number of ISPs, which then blocked access to file-sharing websites, even though there was no proof of the film having been available on any of them. According to Reliance Entertainment, they merely asked ISPs ‘not to make the film available’ on their networks, even though the order did not authorise it. But a right to information request pertaining to a similar case dealing with the distribution of the film Dhammu showed that the entertainment company’s lawyers had in fact asked for dozens of websites – not just deep-link URLs to infringing content – to be blocked, despite publicly claiming otherwise. If web users encountered any information at all about why access to the sites was blocked, it was that the Department of Telecom had ordered the blocking, which was plainly untrue. In February 2012, following a complaint from the Indian Music Industry (a consortium of 142 music companies), the Calcutta High Court ordered 387 ISPs to block 107 websites for music piracy. At least a few of those, including Paktimes.com and Filmicafe.com, were general interest entertainment sites. The most famous of these sites, Songs.pk, re-emerged shortly after the block as Songspk.pk, highlighting the pointlessness of the block. And outside the realm of copyright, in December 2011, the domain name CartoonsAgainstCorruption.com was suspended based on an unlawful complaint from the Mumbai police requesting its suspension, despite there being no powers for them to do so under any law.

Between August and November 2011, the DIT also went to great efforts to compel big internet companies including Indiatimes, Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, to ‘self-regulate’. This revealed the department’s desire to gain ever greater powers to control ‘objectionable’ content online, effectively bypassing the IT Act. It’s obvious, too, that by encouraging internet companies to ‘self-regulate’ the government will avoid embarrassing statistics such as those revealed by Google’s Transparency Report.

New dangers

A way forward, at least for internet-specific laws, could be to rekindle the Cyber Regulations Advisory Committee – a multi-stakeholder committee required by the IT Act – and to practise at home what we preach abroad on matters of internet governance: the value of a multi-stakeholder system, which includes industry, academia and civil society and not just governments. The idea of a multi-stakeholder framework has gained prominence since it was placed at the core of the ‘Declaration of Principles’ at the first World Summit on Information Society in Geneva in 2003. It has also been at the heart of India’s pronouncements at the Internet Governance Forum and the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum. The Internet Governance Division, which formulates the country’s international stance on internet governance, has long recognised that these decisions must be taken in an open and collaborative manner. It is time the DIT’s Cyber-Law and ESecurity Group, which formulates the country’s national stance on the internet, realises the same.

Freedom of speech means nothing in a democratic society if it does not allow everyone to speak. Despite the internet being a very elite space, the number of people who have used it to express themselves since its introduction in India in 1994 is vast, especially when compared to the number of people in India who have expressed themselves in print since 1947 when the country won its independence. Online speech is indeed a big shift from edited and usually civil discussions in the world of print media. Perhaps this gives us some indication of why there is some support among the mass media for government regulations on speech. Too many discussions of online speech laws in India descend into arguments about the lack of civility online. However, the press – and all of us – would do well to remember that civility and decency in speech, while desirable in many contexts, cannot be the subject of legislation. But in India, the greatest threat to freedom of expression is not a government clampdown on dissent but threats from political and corporate powers with a range of tools at their disposal, including fostering a climate of selfcensorship. The government has passed bad laws that have given way to private censorship. And many of these laws are simply a result of gross ineptitude.

We cannot take sufficient comfort in the fact that, in India, censorship is limited and nowhere on the scale that it is in China or Iran. It is crucial that, from a legal, cultural and technological standpoint we do not open the door for further censorship. And currently, we are failing.

Pranesh Prakash is Policy Director at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore. Part of this article appeared in a blog by the author on the centre’s website, cis-india.org, in January 2012

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/index-on-censorship-august-2012-pranesh-prakash-indias-internet-jam

Some ISPs block Wordpress domain across India

praskrishna — 2012-08-26T15:16:30Z

Latest reports confirm that Tata Photon has blocked access to the Wordpress.com domain across India, following a government order to block web pages containing offensive content.

Published in tech 2 on August 25, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Apparently, the ISP has resorted to a blanket ban, blocking access to the entire site instead of clamping down on specific web pages carrying unacceptable content. Wordpress is accessible through other ISPs such as Airtel and Reliance. However, there is no clarity yet about any other ISP blocking out Wordpress entirely, and we are in the process of verifying this.

We find that the domain can be accessed through means such as free proxy websites when using a Tata Photon connection, which could indicate that the problem does not lie with the Wordpress server. Despite the inability to view Wordpress websites and blogs, those with registered accounts on Wordpress are able to log in to the website. Certain portions of the Dashboard or website backend are known to have been blocked, and what remains accessible is functioning very slowly for Tata Photon users. Users cannot edit or post new content at the moment, but can view sections such as the website's stats. However, this all-encompassing block seems to be affecting only the Wordpress.com platform and not Wordpress.org.

The error message that most users are coming to

A blogger by the name 'Anon and on' has written, “I can’t access any WordPress.com blog from home. Neither can I open up the window for a new post or access any support forums. I’ve cleared the cache and tried different browsers, but no luck. All I can do is log in. If I try to see any WordPress.com blog or access my Dashboard or hit “New Post”, the notification I get is that the server couldn’t be contacted and that I should check my connection. Which I would do if it wasn’t for the fact that I can open any and every other website”.

We tried to contact Tata Photon to get a clear idea, but it was unavailable for comment. We also contacted Tata Photon users, who run their websites and blogs on the Wordpress platform. They said they have been unable to access the service since Monday. Many users tweeted out their puzzlement and frustration after discovering that they were suddenly unable to view their own blogs and sites.

"Tata simply blocked 25 MILLION wordpress blogs @cis_india highlight this"

"Not able to open http://Wordpress.com blogs on Tata Photon Plus."

"all wordpress blogs blocked in Tata photon plus"

"It's some Tata Photon bug. Wordpress working fine with Reliance."

"There is a known issue with Tata Photon and Wordpress. Found 5 people who have the same."

In protest, some bloggers from across the country have formed a group called the Indian Bloggers' Forum. The forum plans to approach the Supreme Court with a PIL seeking immediate unblocking of their blogs and websites.

Earlier this week, a list containing 309 URLs sought to be banned by the government in light of the Assam violence and the subsequent exodus in northeast India was leaked online. The URLs comprising Twitter accounts, HTML img tags, blog posts, entire blogs, and a handful of websites, were blocked between August 18 and 21. In an analysis of the leaked information, Pranesh Prakash, Programme Manager at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) wrote, "It is clear that the list was not compiled with sufficient care". The list included Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org among other domains. However, only select entries - 3 from Wordpress.org and 8 from Wordpress.com- were meant to be blocked out.

The clampdown on websites with content deemed to be offensive and disruptive led to the Indian government ordering the blocking of around 310 web pages. The Centre began to come down heavily on the channels it believed were playing a role in triggering fear, and leading to violence and the mass displacement of Indians from the northeast. It has been reported that morphed images and videos were uploaded to these websites with the intention of inciting the Muslim community in the country.

If your access to Wordpress has been blocked, let us know in your comments.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/tech2-in-com-som-isps-block-wordpress-domain-across-india

How ISPs block websites and why it doesn’t help

praskrishna — 2012-08-25T06:56:41Z

Banning websites is ineffective against malicious users as workarounds are easy and well known.

Gopal Sathe's article was published by LiveMint on August 24, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

India blocked 245 web pages for provocative content on Monday in an effort to prevent the spread of hate messages and lessen communal tensions in the country, and suggested via an official release on the website of the Press Information Bureau that more could follow.

As was widely reported in the days that followed, most websites blocked were not related to the ethnic clashes in Assam.

Pranesh Prakash, programme manager with the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, analysed the sites which were listed by the government. In his analysis, 33% of all blocked addresses were on Facebook, 27.8% on YouTube, 9.7% on Twitter and the rest were spread over a number of different websites including Wikipedia, Firspost.com and TimesofIndia.Indiatimes.com.

Prakash says, “I don’t believe that the decision to block sites was politically motivated, but I do believe that in trying to prevent harm, the government has gone overboard.”

He also writes in his analysis, “Even though many of the items on that list do deserve (in my opinion) to be removed [...] the people and companies hosting the material should have been asked to remove it, instead of ordering the ISPs to block them.”

Prakash also pointed out, “There are numerous egregious mistakes. Even people and posts debunking rumours have been blocked, and it is clear that the list was not compiled with sufficient care.”

Of course, India’s overall record on Internet censorship isn’t great, with the current laws encouraging Internet service providers (ISPs) to take down content without investigating individual cases properly. And that is not even taking into consideration official government orders, such as this decision to block websites.

The process of blocking content for an ISP is very simple. After all, any content that is coming from a website to your computer has to travel through the ISP, giving it ample opportunity to observe and censor banned content.

Think of it like this—you’re on an island, with no way to reach the mainland (Internet) where all the websites are. The ISP builds a bridge connecting you to the mainland, and charges you to let cars (data) from the sites come to you, by opening the road. Each web page has a unique ID, like a licence plate. If the government tells the ISP to block a specific page, it’s added to the blacklist, and isn’t allowed on the bridge. The government could also block a full domain, such as Facebook.com, which would be like blocking all cars with DL plates, instead of specific numbers.

New Delhi based cyber security consultant Dominic K. says, “The content is still there and can be accessed from outside India, so these measures are really very ineffective. People can use proxies or a virtual private network (VPN) to circumvent these measures with ease, by appearing to be a different site; so banning sites does nothing to deter malicious users.”

Proxies are websites that load blocked sites for you—if the proxy is not using the ISP doing the block, they can still load the content from the blocked site and present it to the users, since the blocklists simply block websites, and not their content.

VPNs work in a similar fashion, creating a virtual presence for the user outside of their own country. This can be done to circumvent blocks and access region-specific content, but is also a perfectly legitimate tool, and can increase your security greatly.

It’s a pretty crude system but it’s used around the world. In Australia, for example, the government has a page that directly lists their web censorship activities. It wants to block material that includes child sexual abuse imagery, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act. However, as noted on the same page, these measures can be easily circumvented. Since the content remains on the Internet, and is only blocked, it can be accessed by “any technically competent user”.

China, meanwhile, is frequently criticized for what is called, tongue-in-cheek, “the great firewall of China”. Reporters without Borders, a French organization that works for freedom of the press, has a list of countries that are “enemies of the Internet”. China, Iran, North Korea and Burma are some of the worst offenders, but Australia, India, Egypt, France and South Korea are also on the watchlist as “countries under surveillance”.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE publish detailed information on their filtering practices but other countries such as China return connection errors, and fake “file not found” errors.

There is a long history of Internet censorhip in India, and a perception that the laws have been used for political ends. Net censorship has been around for a while—in 1999, VSNL blocked access to Pakistani newspapers. Later, in 2006 the government wanted to block certain separatist groups of the Yahoo! Groups platform. While the government issued specific pages for the ban, initially, the whole Yahoo! Groups domain was blocked by ISPs. In 2007, Orkut was told to remove “defamatory” pages created by users.

Cartoon pornography website Savitabhabi.com was also blocked in 2009, while several blogging services such as Typepad were blocked last year for a few weeks, and then the block was lifted, with no explanations.

Like Australia, in the UK too, child pornography is filtered by the government, though users there have to opt-in for this filtering. Other countries such as Denmark, Norway and Sweden also see such content being filtered. The Indian IT Act also notes various kinds of illegal content which is not permissible, such as child pornography and hate speech.

Other countries, such as the US, also have aggressive Internet censorship of copyrighted content. Prakash says, “Internet censorship is not restricted to India alone. Every country in the world has been doing this in different ways. The United States, for example, has even seized domains in copyright cases, which were legally hosted in other countries. With regards to political censorship, which some feel is a concern now, I don’t think that the Indian government is doing that. I believe that they are sincerely trying to address a serious issue, but people are going overboard.”

He adds, “The biggest concern is that there is no transparency about what is being blocked, or why, and this leaves things open for active misuse in the future.”

In Google’s 2011 Transparency Report, released in June this year, India did not feature very favourably. According to Google, the number of content removal requests the company received increased by 49% from 2010. There were five court orders from India ordering the Internet giant to remove content and there were 96 other requests by Indian government agencies for 246 individual items.

In comparison, the US made only 77 requests in the same period. They also revealed that 70% of the content removal requests from India were related to defamation. National security and religious offence attracted far fewer removal requests. Google received only one request from Indian agencies from July to December 2011 for removal of pornographic content.

Our government might not be politically motivated in this instance—however, the possibility for abuse is high, and what’s more, the measures that are being taken are limited at best. Instead of ordering ISPs to block content directly, the government should be working with the content owners and platforms offering the content to have it taken down properly. Instead, we get crude measures which do nothing to deter malicious users, and only serve to inconvenience the general users.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/www-livemint-com-aug-24-2012-gopal-sathe-how-isps-block-websites-and-why-it-doesnt-help

India's social media crackdown reveals clumsy govt machinery

praskrishna — 2012-08-25T06:11:30Z

"High-handed" and "reckless" are some of the words used in the media to describe the government's online crackdown.

Published in Reuters on August 24, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Add clumsy and incompetent to the list.

The government blocked access to more than 300 web pages after mobile phone text messages and doctored website images fuelled rumours that Muslims were planning revenge attacks for violence in Assam.

Much has been said and debated on the legal and moral legitimacy of the ban. But it's also important to study how officials went about deciding what to ban.

In his analysis of leaked government directives listing web pages to be banned, Pranesh Prakash of the Centre for Internet and Society said the list consists of people and pages who are actually debunking hateful rumours.

Twitter accounts of mainstream journalists and YouTube videos containing news clips from news channels like TimesNow, NDTV and Britain's Channel4 were included.

A glance at the list also shows that the banned pages include a Google Plus search page aggregating news stories posted on the topic "Assam riots." The government might as well ban Google.com, where anyone can do the same thing and much more.

It seems the government had no set procedure in trying to trace abusive content on the web. We don't know how they drew up the lists of sites to target, but it may have happened like this:

As northeast Indians began their exodus from cities fearing attacks, ministers and top bureaucrats went into a huddle and decided in all sincerity they must stop the spread of false information.

The task of quickly identifying malicious online content was given to lower ranking officials. Since there are no set procedures on how to scour the vast virtual universe and choose which offending pages to ban, the most likely step they took was to open Google and start typing in words related to the recent unrest, apart from trawling popular social sites.

The resulting list tells us that the official who vetted the selected pages was not too committed or had minimal online skills. Some of the pages are not even web addresses.

On Friday, the Times of India newspaper website (Read here) reported that the Twitter account of junior Communications and IT minister Milind Deora was blocked instead of the Deora imposter the government was trying to target.

Such amateurishness is not restricted to technology issues alone. There are many examples of clueless officials left red-faced in the face of public scrutiny.

Last year, the country's premier investigating agency, the CBI, had to withdraw a version of its list of India's 50 Most Wanted fugitives after it was revealed that one was already in jail and another living with his family after getting bail. The Central Statistics Office made a goof-up with the index of industrial production for January 2012, revising growth to 1.14 percent after initially putting it at 6.8 percent, a huge gap.

One of the most baffling gaffes happened in 2010 when the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity issued a full-page ad on the occasion of National Girl Child Day featuring the photograph of a male former Pakistan Air Chief Marshal who appeared alongside Indian cricketers Kapil Dev and Virender Sehwag.

But the cake must go to External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna. He read out his Portuguese counterpart's speech while addressing the United Nations Security Council.

(David Lalmalsawma is a Reuters journalist. The opinions expressed here are his own and not of Reuters. You can follow him on Twitter @david_reuters)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/in-reuters-com-david-lalmalsawma-aug-24-2012-indias-social-media-crackdown-reveals-clumsy-govt-machinery

India seeks a tighter grip on social media

praskrishna — 2012-08-25T03:02:35Z

India, with the world's third largest number of Facebook users, is clamping down on social media after recent posting of inflammatory videos on Web sites.

Published in United Press International on August 24, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

But the United States urged New Delhi to find the right balance between freedom of speech and the need to maintain law and order, a report by The Times of India said.

The government's move to block sites it deems unacceptable comes after doctored videos showing apparent violence against Muslims in Assam created violent panic.

While officials say they believe the videos originated on Pakistani blogs, the issue highlighted the uneasy relationship between freedom of speech on the Internet and the government's need to damp down inter-ethnic tensions.

Union Home Secretary R.K. Singh said New Delhi will be raising the issue with Pakistani officials.

"I am sure they (Pakistan) will deny it but we have fairly accurate technical evidence to show that the images originated and were circulated from their territory," he said.

Last week Indian federal and state ministers as well as police authorities watched closely as Assamese Muslims living and working in Bangalore engulfed the train station seeking train ticket home after rumors of the Web site information swept through their community.

Rail authorities and train companies in Bangalore, in the southwest state of Karnataka, put on extra trains to Assam in the northeast to cope with the influx of people who said they feared an outbreak of ethnic violence.

Twitter promised to cooperate with the government after the Prime Minister's Office complained to it about objectionable content on six accounts resembling the PMO's official account, a Press Trust of India report said.

Twitter said it was "actively reviewing" the request and will seek information from the Ministry of Communication and IT "to locate the unlawful content and the specific unlawful tweet," the PTI report said.

Facebook said it will comply with requests from Indian authorities but only where posts broke its existing rules that apply in all countries, a report by the BBC said.

"We have received requests from Indian authorities and agencies and are working through those requests and responding to the agencies," Facebook said. "Content or individuals can be removed from Facebook for a variety of reasons including issuing direct calls for violence or perpetuating hate speech."

At stake for many Internet service providers, site developers and proxy servers is a slice of one of the world's potentially most lucrative advertising markets.

A report by Businessweek in May said India will have more users of Facebook -- which opened an office in India in 2010 -- than any other country by 2015.

India has around 46,300,000 Facebook users,Socialbakers, a social media analytics firm in London, says. This makes India the third-biggest Facebook market behind second-place Brazil with just more than 48 million users and first-place United States with nearly 157 million.

The growth of users in India is around 22 percent a month and will match the United States by the end of 2014, each having around 175 million users, Socialbakers said.

However, the United States has voiced concern that India may overstep a censorship mark in its attempt to stamp out offensive Web sites.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington has been monitoring the situation of Assamese Indians flooding back to Assam from southern India because of concerns about their personal safety.

The U.S. government is "going to obviously watch and see how that process goes forward."

"We are always on the side of full freedom of the Internet," Nuland said in a report by The Times of India.

"But as the Indian government continues to investigate these instances and preserve security, we also always urge the government to maintain its own commitment to human rights, fundamental freedoms, rule of law."

Nuland also said the U.S. government maintained "open lines to our own companies in India, as we do around the world, and we are obviously open to consultation with them if they need it from us."

The weight of the law may be against most of Internet intermediaries, Pranesh Prakash, a lawyer at the Bangalore-based Center for Internet and Society, said.

"The rules are very onerous on intermediaries, since they require them to act within 36 hours to disable access to any information that they receive a complaint about," Prakash wrote in an article The Indian Express newspaper in May 2011.

Any "affected person" according to technology laws can complain about issues including defamation, blasphemy, trademark infringement, threatening the integrity of India, disparaging speech or the blanket "in violation of any law."

It isn't mandatory to give the violator an opportunity to be heard before taking down their content.

"Since intermediaries would lose protection from the law if they didn't take down content, they have no incentives to uphold freedom of speech," Prakash said.

"They instead have been provided incentives to take down all content about which they receive complaints without a considered evaluation of the content."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/www-upi-com-aug-24-2012-india-seeks-a-tighter-grip-on-social-media

National Telecom Policy, 2012

snehashish — 2013-03-15T06:00:26Z

The National Telecom Policy, 2012 was approved by the Union Cabinet on May 31, 2012.

The vision of the policy is, “to provide secure, reliable, affordable and high quality converged telecommunication services anytime, anywhere for an accelerated inclusive socio-economic development”. The policy also aims at recognizing telecom as infrastructure in order to realize the potential of ICT for development.

The main components of the policy are:

Broadband Rural Telephony and Universal Service Obligation Fund
R&D, Manufacturing and Standardization of Telecommunication Equipment
Licensing, Convergence and Value Added Services
Spectrum Management
Quality of Service and Protection of Consumer Interest
Security

Vision of the National Telecom Policy, 2012

The vision of the Policy is, “to provide secure, reliable, affordable and high quality converged telecommunication services anytime, anywhere for an accelerated inclusive socio-economic development”. The vision is to transform the country into an empowered and inclusive knowledge based society through telecommunication as the platform. Information and access to information is a major part of any development scheme, better communication systems can help in increasing awareness and knowledge about various issues in the society.

Background

The growth of telecommunication in rural areas has been slow, with only 34 per cent of the total connections. There is an urgent need to bridge this digital divide and communication gap by providing better and advanced telecommunication services in the rural and remote areas. The current National Telecom Policy, 2012 also aims at an investor friendly policy. It also seeks to generate employment in various telecom sectors through this policy. One of the salient features of the policy is to make available broadband on demand and use of telecom infrastructure which in turn would enable businesses in urban as well as rural areas to engage in the web-economy and e-commerce for inclusive development.

Mobile Devices as an Instrument of Social Empowerment (e-Governance, m-Governance)

The Policy endeavours at making mobile devices as tools for social empowerment. This will be achieved through enabling participation of citizens in e-governance and m-governance projects in key sectors such as health, education, skill development, employment, governance and banking on mobile devices. Cloud-computing will be also used to enable social networking and participative e-governance. One Nation-Full Mobile Number Portability to be implemented and work towards One Nation Free Roaming.

Mobile devices are not only to be used for communication but also to be used as devices to authenticate proof of identity and facilitate secure financial transactions, multilingual services and other capabilities which will assist in increasing the literacy rate in the country.

Strategies

Broadband Rural Telephony and Universal Service Obligation Fund
The Policy dictates for a robust and secure telecommunication service in the rural and remote areas. In order to bridge the digital divide the Policy also mandates affordable and high quality broadband connectivity and telecom service throughout the nation. This will be achieved through combination of technologies viz., optical fibre, wireless, VSAT and others. Optical fibre networks to be laid down to the village panchayats, using USOF funding. It also aims at high speed broadband access to all the village panchayats by 2014 and access to all villages and habitation by 2020. It also aims at increasing the rural tele-density from 29 to 70 by 2012 and 100 by 2020. With high quality voice, data and multimedia and broadcasting services on converged networks,[1] it is expected to render better service to the user.

The policies formulated with respect to access to broadband are:

Develop an “eco-system for broadband” and also work towards a “right to broadband”. It also endeavours to recognize telecom and broadband service a basic necessity in the field of education and health.
Provide affordable and reliable broadband on demand by 2015, 175 million broadband connections by 2017; 600 million by 2020 at a minimum speed of 2 Mbps download speed and also to make available higher speeds of at least 100 Mbps on demand.
Revise the existing broadband download speed from 256 Kbps to 512 Kbps and 2 Mbps by 2015 and speed up to at least 100 Mbps thereafter. The policy also encourages use of FTTH (fibre to the home) to create a “always connected” society.
Set up an agency, to co-ordinate with different government departments in order to efficiently lay optical fibre cables across the nation and help in rapid expansion of broadband services in the country.
Use broadband along with other government agencies for the implementation of e-governance, e-panchayats MNREGA, NKN, AADHAR, AAKASH tablet. It will also help in facilitating secure financial transactions online.
Stimulate interest with respect to utility of broadband by promoting regional and local content with the help of the Department of Information Technology. This will help in generating investment for All-Internet Protocol (IP) Networks including Next Generation Networks (NGN)

R&D, Manufacturing and Standardization of Telecommunication Equipment

The Policy directives for encouraging R&D are:

Encourage indigenous manufacturing and R&D, entrepreneurship and IPR creation in the field of telecom products and service under the 12th 5 year plan.
Preference to be given to domestically produced telecom products in case of those telecom products which have security implication for the country or which will be put to government use. Moreover, the policy in order to promote indigenous R&D in telecommunication technology will provide for fiscal and financial incentive will be granted for indigenous R&D.
Focus on production and R&D of telecom equipment as well as address the issues of security and strategic concerns. It also aims to focus on a green policy and use of renewable sources of energy in the telecom sector.
Set up a council with experts from sectors of the telecom industry including telecom service providers, telecom manufacturing industry, government, academia and R&D institutions. The functions of the Council would be to (a) forecast on technology change and product development; (b) update the national programme for technology/product development; (c) to act as a nodal group to ensure implementation of the recommendations made for R&D and IPR creation.
Promote collaboration between telecom service providers, manufacturers, R&D centres, academia and other stakeholders for development and introduction of new products in the market which are more suitable for Indian environment and security needs.
Assist entrepreneurs by creating funds and promoting indigenous manufacturing, R&D and intellectual property creation.

The Policy also addresses issues with regards to standards in the telecom sector. The main policy directives for standardization of telecom in India are:

Set up new standards to meet national requirements and participate in the standard making process carried out by international standardization organizations and also contribute in formulation of global standards.
Implement platform neutral services in e-governance and m-governance in the sector of health, education and agriculture. The Policy objective is also to encourage development of mobile phone based on open platform standards.
Mandate to use common platform for interconnection of various networks for non-discriminatory and non-exclusive access.
Create a road-map for aligning technology, demand, standards and regulations for the purpose of promoting competition in the market.
Set up a Telecommunication Standard Development Organisation (TSDO) as an autonomous body to build consensus about standards to meet national requirements including security requirements. The Organisation will also oversee participation of government, industry, R&D centres, service providers and academia in such setting of standards.

In order to promote domestic manufacture of telecom equipments, the Policy seeks to support electronic design and manufacturing clusters for design, development and manufacture of telecommunication equipment. The Policy aims to provide incentive for export of telecom equipment and also give fiscal incentives for domestic manufacturing of telecom equipments under the Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme (M-SIPS). It will also lay down mechanism for testing and certification with respect to conformance, performance, interoperability, health, safety, security, EMF/EMI/EMC (electromagnetic compatibility).

Licensing, Convergence and Value Added Services

The policy regarding licensing:

Simplify the licensing framework in order to facilitate converged high quality services.
Strengthen institutional and legal and regulatory framework and to bring more transparency and efficiency in decision making process and also implement web-based e-governance solution for online application, processing and issuance of licence by Department of Telecommunication.
Convergence of technology, for the purpose of enabling a single network for voice data and video, internet telephony (VoIP), value added services and broadcasting services.
Move towards convergence between telecom, broadcast, IT service, networks, platforms, technologies. It is also imperative to overcome hurdles such as “existing segregation of licensing, registration and regulatory mechanisms in these areas to enhance affordability, increase access, delivery of multiple services and reduce cost.”
Use of fixed mobile convergence in order to optimize the delivery of services to the consumers irrespective of the device or the location.
Support from USOF for telecom services, including converged communication services for providing services in commercially unviable rural and remote areas.

Spectrum Management

The Policy aims at creating a framework for increasing the availability of spectrum for the purpose of telecom services. It also seeks to implement a transparent process for allocation of spectrum as well as ensure availability of spectrum. The Policy wishes to make available additional 300 MHz for IMT (4G) services by 2013 and another 200 MHz by 2020.

The government will also promote efficient use of spectrum and will conduct periodical spectrum usage audit. It will also de-licence un-used and additional frequency bands for public use. It will also conduct periodic audit of spectrum use, to ensure optimum use of spectrum.

The policy directives for spectrum management are:

Liberalise spectrum for the purpose of enabling use of spectrum for providing any service through any technological medium. Such liberalisation policy will also allow spectrum pooling, sharing, and later trading to effect optimum use of spectrum. This will be done through appropriate regulatory framework.
Re-farm spectrum to allot alternate frequency bands to service providers and also to make available spectrum for the introduction of new technologies in the telecom market.
Devise a roadmap for the purpose of making available additional spectrum in the next five years. It also seeks to make available globally harmonised IMT spectrum in 450 MHz, 700 MHz, 1800 MHz, 1910 MHz, 2.1 GHz, 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz, 3.5 GHz bands and other bands to be identified by ITU for commercial mobile services.
Provide small chunks of frequency bands for the purpose of research and development indigenous technologies and products.
Optimize spectrum allocation by reviewing the existing geographical unit of allocation of spectrum.
Promote use of white spaces with low power devices, without causing harmful interference to the licensed applications in specific frequency bands by deployment of Software Defined Radios (SDRs), Cognitive Radios (CRs), etc.
Establish Institute of Advanced Radio Spectrum Engineering and Management Studies (IARSEMS) which will carry out policy research in radio spectrum engineering, management/radio monitoring and related aspects.

Quality of Service and Protection of Consumer Interest

The main policy mandate is to further empower TRAI (independent regulator) for the purpose of ensuring that the prescribed performance standards and quality of service parameters are complied with, by the service provides and also provide support to the sector regulator in creating awareness about services, tariff and quality of service. It also seeks to balance the interests of the consumer and the service provider.

The Policy objectives with respect to protection of consumer interests:

Informed consent;
Transparency;
Accountability in quality of service, tariff, usage and;
Strengthen grievance redressal mechanisms

The strategies adopted for ensuring quality of service and protections of consumer interest are:

Formulate code of practices of sales and marketing communication.

Mandate web-based disclosure of area coverage by the telecom service providers.

Establish National Mobile Property Registry to deal with issues of security, theft and other concerns such a reprogramming of mobile handsets.

Undertake legislative measure to include dispute between telecom consumers and service providers within the jurisdiction of consumer forums.

Security

The objective of the policy is to formulate a strategy to address the concerns related to communication security and network security. AADHAR based authentication framework would be crucial in providing service such as m-payment.

The strategy adopted to implement security measures are:

Telecom service providers must take adequate measures; to ensure security of the communication send and received through their networks. The service provider will adopt contemporary network security standards

Telecom service providers must provide communication assistance to law enforcement agencies. Telecom service providers must assist law enforcement agencies within legal framework and also keeping in view the individual privacy and also following international practices to the extent possible for fulfilling national security needs.

Regulatory measures to ensure that safe to connect devices are inducted on to the network. To build national capacity around security standards, security testing, and interception and monitoring capabilities.

[1].Multiple communication service on a single network; See, http://bit.ly/zEA4wa

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/resources/national-telecom-policy-2012

Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012 — India Report

pranesh — 2012-08-16T10:23:36Z

Pranesh Prakash prepared the India Report for Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012. The report was published on the A2K Network website.

Summary

India's Copyright Act is a relatively balanced instrument that recognises the interests of consumers through its broad private use exception, and by facilitating the compulsory licensing of works that would otherwise be unavailable. However, the compulsory licensing provision have not been utilized so far, because of both a lack of knowledge and more importantly because of the stringent conditions attached to them. Currently, the Indian law is also a bit out of sync with general practices as the exceptions and limitations allowed for literary, artistic and musical works are often not available with sound recordings and cinematograph films. There are numerous other such inconsistencies. Positively retrogressive provisions, such as criminalisation of individual non-commercial infringement also exist. India's Copyright Act is a relatively balanced instrument that recognises the interests of consumers through its broad private use exception, and by facilitating the compulsory licensing of works that would otherwise be unavailable. However, the compulsory licensing provision have not been utilized so far, because of both a lack of knowledge and more importantly because of the stringent conditions attached to them. Currently, the Indian law is also a bit out of sync with general practices as the exceptions and limitations allowed for literary, artistic and musical works are often not available with sound recordings and cinematograph films. There are numerous other such inconsistencies. Positively retrogressive provisions, such as criminalisation of individual non-commercial infringement also exist.

It is unfortunate that the larger public interest in copyright-related issues are never foregrounded in India. For instance, the Standing Committee tasked with review of the Copyright Amendment Bill has held hearings without calling a single consumer rights organization, and without seeking any civil society engagement, except for the issue of access for persons with disabilities. This was despite a number of civil society organizations, including consumer rights organizations, sending in a written submission to the Standing Committee.

This lopsidedness in terms of policy influence is resulting in greater imbalance in the law, as evidenced by the government's capitulation to a handful of influential multinational book publishers on the question of allowing parallel importation of copyrighted works. Furthermore, pressure from the United States and the European Union, in the form of the Special 301 report and the India-EU free trade agreement that is being negotiated are leading to numerous negative changes being introduced into Indian law, despite us not having any legal obligation under any treaties. Such influence only works in one direction: to increase the rights granted to rightsholders, and has so far never included any increase in user rights.

It is true that copyright infringement, particularly in the form of physical media, is widespread in India. However this must be taken in the context that India, although fast-growing, remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Although India's knowledge and cultural productivity over the centuries and to the present day has been rich and prodigious, its citizens are economically disadvantaged as consumers of that same knowledge and culture. Indeed, most students, even in the so-called elite institutions, need to employ photocopying and other such means to be able to afford the requisite study materials. Visually impaired persons, for instance, have no option but to disobey the law that does not grant them equal access to copyrighted works. Legitimate operating systems (with the notable exception of most free and open source OSes) add a very high overhead to the purchase of cheap computers, thus driving users to pirated software. Thus, these phenomena need to be addressed not at the level of enforcement, but at the level of supply of affordable works.

Source URL: http://bit.ly/QEJf5l
Click to download the report [PDF, 201 Kb]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/consumers-international-ip-watchlist-report-2012

Consumers International IP Watchlist Report 2012

praskrishna — 2012-08-16T10:18:58Z

This report was prepared by Pranesh Prakash. It was posted on the A2K Network website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/ci-ip-watchlist-report-2012

Copyright Law: More Than A Moral Obligation

praskrishna — 2012-08-13T03:59:47Z

It was a cozy and warm atmosphere in a bookstore in South Delhi — with plenty of cushions thrown on the floor — that I attended a delightful book launch for children. The book was displayed prominently, along with some fabulous original illustrations done by the author, from which the book illustrator had been “inspired”. I clicked some photographs with my smartphone. The publishers, based in another city, couldn't attend the event. So, I thought why not mail it to them, they are fraternity. Soon, a newsletter popped into my mailbox from the same publisher, with a lovely write-up of the book launch accompanied by my photographs, but with no acknowledgement given to me. I was disappointed.

This column by Jaya Bhattacharji Rose was published in Business World on August 9, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

After pondering over it, I decided to bring it to the publisher’s notice. To me, it was the principle of recognising the IPR (intellectual property rights) of the creator and giving due credit that I felt was at stake here. This was the reply I received, “So sorry. It was a slip up as I had said that you should be acknowledged. But since that is not the usual practice — simply because no one had asked — it was overlooked.” An apology received and accepted. I did not stop at that. I requested that in the next newsletter it should be rectified and on the blog, the photographs uploaded should go with credits.

To explore larger issues surrounding copyright, and for publishers in general, management of copyright is a very important part of their business. In May 2012, the Indian Parliament passed a few amendments to the Copyright Act. (It is still a bill, at the time of writing this column.) A victory to a large extent for the music industry, but it has made very little difference, so far, to the publishing industry. Plus, the debate surrounding Clause 2(m) of the Indian Copyright Act is still an open chapter. As per the clause, a book published in any part of the world can easily be sold here. Thus, diluting the significance or infringing upon an exclusive Indian edition. The Parliament Standing Committee investigating the pros and cons of Clause 2(m), made a “forceful recommendation” for its amendment, but it was not included in the bill. So the HRD Minister has referred it to an NCAER expert committee constituted.

However, another amendment relevant to the publishing industry has been the increase in copyright term for photographs. “This will make using older photographs impossible without hunting down the original photographer,” says Pranesh Prakash, a lawyer and copyright expert and programme manager at Centre for Internet and Society. “So far, things have worked well because sepia-tinted photographs have generally become part of the public domain. But now, only photographs by photographers who died before 1951 are part of the public domain. This has shrivelled up the public domain in photographs since it is even more difficult to trace the photographer (and date of death) than to estimate the age of a photograph, determining whether a photograph is in the public domain is laden with uncertainty. The use of historical photos in books (and Wikipedia) will be badly affected.”

Having been a publisher for years, I tend to be very careful about issues involving copyright. Dig deep and you will find anecdotes that illustrate the crying need for understanding copyright issues. For example, an illustrator submitting files to a reputed art director could be told that the illustrations are not up to mark. Unfortunately, when the book is published, the ‘new’ illustrations are pale imitations of the original line drawings submitted by the illustrator.

Or for that matter, a playwright being asked to create a script, but is never acknowledged or even paid the royalty due since the director believes that the core idea for the play is hers. ‘The playwright merely gave it a form’ is a common retort. Or, a couple of editors discovering their original research (and highly acclaimed globally) has been blatantly plagiarised by a well-known writer and published by an equally prominent publisher. Despite having marshalled all the necessary evidence, the editors are unable to file a case, since the court fee is a percentage of the damages sought and is beyond their reach. So, these cases stagnate with no redressal and the creators are left frustrated and angry.

The core issue is, how many professionals in the publishing eco-system actually know what is copyright or how to exercise their rights? After all, it is only a concept, albeit a legal one, which gives the creator of an original work exclusive right(s) to it for a limited period of time. Establishing and verifying the ownership to copyright is a sensitive issue. A good example of how an organisation can facilitate, disseminate, inform and empower a literary community on IPR and related topics is the Irish Writers Union.

According to their website, it is “the representative organisation for one of the major stakeholders in any discussion about copyright: Irish authors. While we understand that copyright legislation might be a barrier to innovation in certain industries, the IWU believes that any change to copyright law must be managed in such a way as to ensure that no damage is done to Ireland’s literary activity. ...literature earns hard cash for Ireland. Both in the form of its contribution to the €2bn annual gain from cultural tourism and in the considerable revenues deriving from the success of sales of Irish works, Irish publishing and writing is an activity that should not be jeopardised by any legal change that weakens the value of copyright ownership to the creators of original literary works. ...We note that if anything, copyright law in regard to literature should be strengthened to protect rights holders.”

As Shauna Singh Baldwin, a Canadian-American novelist of Indian descent, comments upon the significance of copyright in an e-mail conversation with me, “The breath of the individual creator, his/her imagination and speculation gives life to a work of art. To create something new, you take ideas from many sources, recontextualise them, find unexpected connections between them, and create something new — and beautiful. If we continue to be ashamed of our own imaginations and so fearful of mistakes that we must copy the tried and true, we will never create, only innovate.”

As for the rejoinder and photo credits I had requested for my photographs, the publisher implemented it immediately. And I was glad.

Jaya Bhattacharji Rose is an international publishing consultant and columnist.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/www-businessworld-in-jaya-bhattacharji-rose-august-9-copyright-law

Respite from Internet Censorship?

praskrishna — 2012-08-10T15:51:30Z

Of late, a lot of the blocked websites have started reappearing. So should we sit back and relax? We take a look at how it's not really the start of something beautiful...writes Nimish Sawant. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Published in thinkdigit on June 2, 2012

In April, Chennai based Copyrights Labs got a John Doe order (An order against no one in particular) from Madras High Court which ordered ISPs to block several video hosting websites such as Vimeo and Dailymotion along with a string of torrent sites such as Isohunt and Pirate Bay. The motive was to prevent illegal sharing of the movies 3 and Dhammu. The ISPs went on this whole website blocking spree welcoming users with messages such as, “This website has been blocked as per instructions from the Department of Telecom (DoT)”.

In June, the Madras High Court issued an order which made it mandatory for complainants to provide exact URLs where they find illegal content, such that ISPs could block only that content and not the entire site.

This order is definitely a relief for Indian internet users, who were facing a variety of blocked websites for a couple of months. In the May-June period there was a lot of media coverage around Internet censorship and then there was the much-hyped Anonymous protest (http://goo.gl/YCQod) that saw a not-so-great participation. Just like most media stories, it is slowly departing from the public conciousness. So does this mean our censorship woes are behind us?

Far from it.

The dark cloud of Intermediaries Guidelines
The Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011 were added to the IT Act 2000. According to it, the intermediaries (website, domain registrar, blog owner and so on) guidelines allows the government to pull up any website that hosts “objectionable” content. It gives anyone the right to send “content removal notice” to an intermediary, asking it to be removed within 36 hours. Terms describing such content - grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, obscene - are those that are open to interpretation. So, Facebook can be hauled up for derogatory content or pages on its site. Hell, even if you own a blog and someone else posts a derogatory comment, you can be pulled up.

This is a rather smart move by the government to force self-censorship down our throats. Just try imagining - Every 60 seconds: on YouTube there are 48 hours worth of videos uploaded; Wordpress users publish 347 blogs; Twitter users send over 100,000 tweets among others. (Source: http://goo.gl/U7qT8) How on earth is monitoring such a vast amount of data even possible?

Karnika Seth, Cyberlaw Expert	"Any content which is illegal can be blocked by ISP or on directions of a court.A person who uploads illegal content does not have a right to claim that it should not be blocked. But if harmless content is blocked arbitrarily by government or by an ISP, a person can approach the court for a direction that content should not be blocked from public access. No specific section in IT Act entitles a person to sue in such cases . However freedom of speech and expression is our fundamental right guaranteed under Art.19 of the Constitution of India and it is our constitutional right to seek legal redress for its protection by approaching the court."

Karnika Seth, Cyberlaw Expert

"Any content which is illegal can be blocked by ISP or on directions of a court.A person who uploads illegal content does not have a right to claim that it should not be blocked. But if harmless content is blocked arbitrarily by government or by an ISP, a person can approach the court for a direction that content should not be blocked from public access. No specific section in IT Act entitles a person to sue in such cases . However freedom of speech and expression is our fundamental right guaranteed under Art.19 of the Constitution of India and it is our constitutional right to seek legal redress for its protection by approaching the court."

Every site has internal checks and balances in the form of a 'Report Abuse' option, where users raise flags against content which they may find objectionable and the site takes a call. But with the intermediary rules, the content has to be removed within 36 hours. And here's the kicker – the content can be removed without informing the owner or giving him or her a chance to defend. A political cartoon website cartoonsagainstcorruption.com was a victim of such rules. In March this year, Rajya Sabha MP, P. Rajeeve, had moved a motion calling for the annulment of the intermediaries rules sometime in April. This motion, as would be expected, was defeated by a voice vote.

“Any content which is illegal can be blocked by the ISP or on directions of a court. A person who uploads illegal content does not have a right to claim that it should not be blocked. But if harmless content is blocked arbitrarily by government or by an ISP, a person can approach the court for a direction that content should not be blocked from public access,” said cyberlaw expert Karnika Seth. When asked if there is a clause in the IT Act which enables a person to drag the government or the ISP for blocking access to their harmless content on the web, Seth said, “No specific section in the IT Act entitles a person to sue in such cases . However, freedom of speech and expression is our fundamental right guaranteed under Art.19 of the Constitution of India and it is our constitutional right to seek legal redress for its protection by approaching the court.”

So what should one do if his or her content is blocked due to the blanket ban on websites? “If I am blocked access to my content on the web (say by blocking sites such as Vimeo or Blogspot for instance) I should file an appeal against the John Doe order in the higher court or to the division bench of High court if earlier order has been passed by single bench of the same High court. These provisions are there for any citizen in Procedural Law of India. The IT Act, 2000 need not be invoked,” says Advocate Prashant Mali, President, Cyber Law Consulting.

Google Transparency report clearly established a link between internet censorship and the government. According to the report, between January and June 2011 Google received 1739 requests for disclosure of user data from the Indian government whereas from July to December 2011, the number of requests by the government went up to 2207. Thankfully Google's compliance rate has come down, but the requests will keep increasing. And this is just Google products we are talking about. Is it then right for just the government to go ahead and draft the rules regarding internet usage? Are there provisions for you, the user to play a part in drafting of these rules. According to Advocate Mali, laws are generally put up for debate on various Government websites. But in the case of the Intermediaries Guidelines, the government used the two-thirds majority to pass the rules.

According to Sunil Abraham, Director, Centre for Internet and Society – a Bangalore-based internet advocacy group, we are very far in terms of Internet policies. “Dr. Gulshan Rai of CERT-IN has not taken even the public feedback process seriously and does not hold public consultations. This is very unlike TRAI, the telecoms regulator that has a very sophisticated approach towards transparent and participatory policy formulation.” He says that in India there is little transparency in some areas of policy articulation and our representatives do not seem sufficiently interested in protecting the public interest.

Also according to Adv. Mali, the recent Madras High Court directive asking the ISPs to block only the ‘pirated content’ and not the entire website, is just half the battle won for the ISPs. “If ISP's feel they have won, then that's just half the victory, because if they don't implement the order with full might and even if one copyright gets infringed because of there weak enforcement, then it would amount to Contempt of Court which will land ISP's into soup,” he says.

“The Madras High Court judgement which essentially directs ISPs to block “pirated content”, and not the website as a whole, is a good judgment with respect to Internet users, but implementing it selectively would be a mammoth task for ISP's. If ISP's feel they have won, then it's just half the battle won, because if they don't implement the order with full might and even if one copyright gets infringed because of weak enforcement, then it would amount to Contempt of Court which will land ISP's into soup."

Advocate Prashant Mali, President, Cyber Law Consulting

Is the Anonymous way, the right way?
In June, we saw the global hactivist organisation - Anonymous attacking a string of Government websites and that of ISPs such as Reliance communications, which had blocked access to websites. On June 9, there was a street protest across various metros in India. While the participation was not very encouraging, the sympathy for what Anonymous hackers were doing to those opposing Internet censorship was immense.

According to Advocate Mali, though the agenda of Anonymous was good, their means of achieving that end were wrong. “One cannot put a gun on the Government’s head in a democracy. If they keep doing this, they will be outlawed. If Anonymous really wants to work for the netizens, they should find better ways to protest instead of those which are cognizable cyber crimes in India.” said Mali.

According to Abraham, Anonymous are embracing the civil disobedience movement to protest against unjust laws. He feels that it is pertinent for Anonymous to retain the moral high ground. “Breaking into servers, leaks of personal information and defacement of websites is both illegal and also unlikely to win them more supporters from within the policy formulation space,” concurs Abraham.

Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet & Society

“The government ie. the government in power, does only frame subsidiary rules. For example – the draconian rules related to reasonable security measures, cyber cafes and intermediaries were drafted in April last year. The main Act in this case the Information Technology Act is framed in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Even though the elected government may dominate the proceedings, if they have a clear majority, the opposition parties must debate every detail especially in laws that affect our civil liberties. Unfortunately, since the Internet is not used by the majority of the population it is politically still an insignificant issue. The private sector cannot frame laws that regulate itself – that would be a contradiction in terms. Citizens cannot be asked to vote in referendums each time laws have to be passed, that would just be too slow. Transparency representative democracy is the online option – unfortunately in India there is little transparency in some areas of policy articulation and our representatives don't seem to be sufficiently interested in protecting the public interest.”

Where do we go from here?
So it is safe to say that even though the issue of censorship is not making headlines everyday, it will never will be behind us. “This is just a temporary lull in the storm. Governments are always keen to crack down on free speech and privacy online,” feels Abraham. According to him, projects such as Unique Identification (UID) and National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) means the death of anonymity and pseudonymity for Internet and mobile users in the country.

On the other hand, Adv. Mali says that so long as the Intermediaries guidelines are part of the IT Act, it will only mean bad news for regular netizens. “Till the rules are effective, censorship and blocking would be a weapon in the hands of the Government, even though it may violate certain Fundamental Rights enshrined by Indian Constitution to Indian Citizens,” he said.

“Indian Internet users have to be very vigilant – if not, we will loose all our rights and freedoms one by one,” warns Abraham.

We can just hope that the issue does not get completely out of hand.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/www-thinkdigit-com-nimish-sawant-02-06-2012-respite-from-internet-censorship