Centre for Internet and Society

February 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-04-07T07:27:46Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) welcomes you to the second issue of its newsletter (February) for the year 2014:

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Highlights
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We published revised chapters for the states of Mizoram, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, as part of our National Resource Kit project.
In the concluding blog post of a three-part study Ananth Padmanabhan looks at the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act, and concludes that both those laws restrain courts and private companies from ordering an ISP to block a website for copyright infringement.
Telugu Wikipedia celebrated its 10^th anniversary. An event was co-organized in Vijaywada to celebrate the same.
The second Institute on Internet and Society was held in Pune from February 11 to 17. The proceedings from the workshop are captured in a blog post.
CIS announced an Open Call for Comments for the latest draft of the Privacy Bill, 2013 prepared by Bhairav Acharya.
Forbes India published its “30 Under 30 List”. Pranesh Prakash is featured in the list.
As part of the Making Change Project, Denisse Albornoz wrote a blog post that compares the production behind a performance with the process of storytelling.
Beli gives an introduction to spectrum sharing. The post looks at GSM and CDMA, and touches upon LTE, and how they might share spectrum.

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Jobs
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CIS is seeking applications for the post of Program Officer (Access to Knowledge): http://bit.ly/1fnydB0. There are two vacancies for this post and it is full-time based in Delhi. To apply, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org), Nirmita Narasimhan (nirmita@cis-india.org) and Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org) with three writing samples of which at least one demonstrates your analytic skills, and one that shows your ability to simplify complex policy issues.

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Accessibility and Inclusion
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As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Mizoram, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 35 states.

Based upon discussion with the office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD) the following chapters were revised:

► National Resource Kit Chapter

The Mizoram Chapter (by CLPR, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1eUSvxW
The Dadra & Nagar Haveli Chapter (by CLPR, February 6, 2014): http://bit.ly/1mv3YhJ
The Haryana Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 10, 2014): http://bit.ly/1dVOiKI
The Himachal Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 12, 2014): http://bit.ly/1jSk03x

► Other

# Participation in Events

National Consultation on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Development Process (organized by CBM India in collaboration with United Nations Solution Exchange for Gender Community, WHO Regional office for South-East Asia, New Delhi, February 12, 2014). Anandhi Viswanathan participated in a panel discussion. She made a presentation on the National Resource Kit project: http://bit.ly/OlkHVq.
Zero Project Conference on Accessibility: Innovative Policies and Practices for Persons with Disabilities (organized by Essl Foundation, the World Future Council and the European Foundation Centre, United Nations Office, Vienna, February 27 and 28, 2014). Pranesh Prakash spoke on Affordable Text-to-Speech Software from India: http://bit.ly/1czo32s. Nominations on e-speak were recognised as examples of innovative practices and policies from India. Pranesh Prakash was also a speaker on Copyright Exception for Accessible Formats: http://bit.ly/1l8HRth.

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Access to Knowledge
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The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software.

# Analyses

Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 2) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cddoKm. Analyses the law laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court on secondary and contributory copyright infringement.
Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 3) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1g35mDg. Analyses the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act.

# Participation in Events

2nd International Conference on Managing Intellectual Property Rights and Strategy (MIPS 2014) (organized by Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay with support from the Ministry of Human Resources Development IPR Chair Project, Government of India): http://bit.ly/PsPEbq.
Consultation on Institutional Arrangements for IP management under MHRD (organized by the Planning Commission and Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi, February 21, 2014). Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this consultation: http://bit.ly/1fTCoar.
National Conference on Use of Technology in Higher Education (organized by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development and Planning Commission in partnership with Microsoft Research and British Council, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/P6u78i. Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the event as a panelist in the session on "Future of Content Creation".

# Media Coverage

Pranesh Prakash: Influencing India's IP Laws (by Samar Srivastava, Forbes India, February 15, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBzLMq.

The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (http://bit.ly/SPqFOl). As part this project (http://bit.ly/X80ELd), we organised 4 workshops in the month of January, published an article in DNA, and signed a memorandum of understanding with KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences to further the development of Odia Wikipedia:

►Wikipedia

# Articles / Blog Entries

Odia Language's Presence in Digital Media and Wikipedia's Role (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Samaja, March 2, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ieF3sC.
Indian Wikimedia community coordinates Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain and Jeph Paul, Wikimedia Foundation, March 6, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cyRfqf,

# Events Co-organized

Cinemathon2014 Bangalore (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CIS, Bangalore, February 8-9, 2014): http://bit.ly/MRRkZz.
Tewiki 10th Anniversary (organized by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia community, February 15, 2014): http://bit.ly/1iI2Pxs. T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaikh were speakers at the event.
Cinemathon2014 Mumbai (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CAMP Studio, Mumbai, February 15-16, 2014): http://bit.ly/P5YGL8.
Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (organized by Roshini Nilaya and CIS-A2K, Mangalore, February 26, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave a presentation on Wikipedia with a special focus on students and women.

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

# Media Coverage

Father-son duo promote Punjabi online (by Jatinder Preet, Sunday Guardian, February 1, 2014): http://bit.ly/1l87b2h.
୧୦ ବର୍ଷରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ୱିକିପିଡିଆ (Rabibara Sambad (Sunday supplement of Odia newspaper The Sambad), February 9, 2014): http://bit.ly/1igMynn. This is a feature about Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary and the story of a dead volunteer community reviving after 8 years.
Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (Prajavani, February 27, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gVMG6f.

# Participation in Event

The Dynamics of Education to Employment Journey: Opportunities and Challenges (organized by KIIT School of Management, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, February 21-22, 2014). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk: http://bit.ly/1ePwqHc.

Event Organized

Wiki Women's Workshop (ICG – Dona Paula, Goa, March 9, 2014): http://bit.ly/MRRJLy. The event is being organized as part of the commemoration of the International Women's Day.

Openness

# Event Organised

Bitcoin & Open Source with Aaron Koenig (CIS, Bangalore, February 7, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fbN6mP.

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Internet Governance
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CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. Gautam Bhatia gives an analysis of the right to privacy from a constitutional perspective. Bhairav Acharya prepared an updated version of the Privacy Protection Bill which was published for comments.

# Call for Comments

The Privacy Protection Bill, 2013 (by Bhairav Acharya, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1g3TwIX. CIS announced an Open Call for Comments to the latest version of the bill.

# Articles

The Internet Way (by Nishant Shah, Biblio Vol. 19 No.8 (1&2), January – February 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBp9gJ. Dr. Nishant Shah's review of the book “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” by Bantam Press/Random House Group, London can be found on page 16.
Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 3: The Public/Private Distinction and the Supreme Court’s Wrong Turn (by Gautam Bhatia, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBosnw. This was originally published on Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog.
Big Democracy, Big Surveillance: India's Surveillance State (by Maria Xynou, Open Democracy, February 28, 2014): http://bit.ly/1nkg8Ho.
Will You be Paid to Post a Picture? (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, February 18, 2014): http://bit.ly/P65d8L.

# Blog Entries

February 11: The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance (by Divij Joshi, February 14, 2014): http://bit.ly/1e7drCV.
Calcutta High Court Strengthens Whistle Blower Protection (by Divij Joshi, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cG8v7t.
CIS Welcomes 52nd Report on Cyber Crime, Cyber Security, and Right to Privacy (by Elonnai Hickok, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1oviMJ4.
UIDAI Practices and the Information Technology Act, Section 43A and Subsequent Rules (by Elonnai Hickok, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fbSfep.

# Events Organized

Nullcon Goa Feb 2014 — International Security Conference (organised by Nullcon, Bogmallo Beach Resort, Goa, February 12 – 15, 2014). CIS is one of the sponsors for this event: http://bit.ly/1lrBu5I.
Counter Surveillance Panel: DiscoTech & Hackathon (co-organized by CIS, MIT Centre for Civic Media Co-Design Lab, Tactical Technology Collective, Hackteria.org, and Shristi School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, March 1, 2014): http://bit.ly/NCGMyH

# Participation in Events

First Meeting of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for India Internet Governance Forum (organized by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, New Delhi, February 10, 2014). Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting: http://bit.ly/1fKu5xz.
Internet Intermediary Liability: Towards Evidence-based Policy and Regulatory Reform to Secure Human Rights on the internet (organized by Association for Progressive Communications, The Wedgewood, Melville, Johannesburg, February 10-11, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fMAEK2. Elonnai Hickok was a speaker.
Towards an Equitable and Just Internet (organized by IT for Change, New Delhi, February 14-15, 2014). Bhairav Acharya was a speaker: http://bit.ly/1cz9EDt.
Workshop on Media Law & Policy Curriculum Development (organized by the Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, Delhi and University of Oxford in support with the International Higher Education-Knowledge Economy Partnerships Programme of the British Council, February 16, 2014, National Law University, Delhi): http://bit.ly/1ovoT00. Bhairav Acharya was a speaker.
The Changing Role of the Media in India: Constitutional Perspectives (organized by School of Law, Christ University, February 28, 2014): http://bit.ly/1lB2nTO. Snehashish Ghosh moderated a session at this conference.

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News & Media Coverage
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CIS gave its inputs to the following recent media coverage:

The Dangers of Birdsong (by Namrata Joshi, Outlook, January 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kB8J7L.
A Tale of Two Internet Campaigns (by Deepa Kurup, The Hindu, February 11, 2014): http://bit.ly/1lDdRZy.
Dark days for the creative class in India: Siddiqui (by Haroon Siddiqui, thestar.com, February 16, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gdtgbC.
The Forbes India 30 Under 30 List (by Abhilasha Khaitan, Forbes India, February 21, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ovnvKM. Pranesh Prakash features in the list.
India ‘tea parties’ enable politicians to woo urban youth with technology (by Avantika Chilkoti, Financial Times, February 26, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cGfOMm.

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Digital Humanities
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CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

# Blog Entries

Defending the Humanities in the Digital Age (by Nishant Shah, DML Central, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1czdZqg.
Digital Humanities in India- Mapping Changes at the Intersection of Youth, Technology and Higher Education (by Sneha PP, February 21, 2014): http://bit.ly/1qd6xo4.

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Digital Natives
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CIS is doing a research project titled “Making Change”. The project will explore new ways of defining, locating, and understanding change in network societies. Having the thought piece 'Whose Change is it Anyway' as an entry point for discussion and reflection, the project will feature profiles, interviews and responses of change-makers to questions around current mechanisms and practices of change in South Asia and South East Asia:

►Making Change Project

# Blog Entries

Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 1 (by Denisse Albornoz, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1jX4qBb.
Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 2 (by Denisse Albornoz, February 27, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fKwQil.

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Telecom
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Shyam Ponappa, a Distinguished Fellow at CIS is a regular columnist with the Business Standard. The articles published on his blog Organizing India Blogspot is mirrored on our website:

# Newspaper Column

Centre- or State-Driven Development? (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, February 5, 2014, Observer India Blogspot, February 7, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ceuWFS.

# Blog Entry

An Introduction to Spectrum Sharing (by Beli, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/NZlknd.

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Knowledge Repository on Internet Access
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CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB.

►Event Organized

Institute on Internet and Society (organised by Ford Foundation and CIS, Yashada, Pune, February 11-17, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fpTdDS. Bishakha Datta, Ravikiran Annaswamy, Kingsley John, Prof. G. Nagarjuna, Nisha Thompson, Prashant Naik, Nehaa Chaudhari, Bhairav Acharya, Manu Srivastav, Dr. Abhijeet Safai, Payal Malik, Nishant Shah, Laura Stein, Sunil Abraham, Madan Muthu and Chinmayi Arun taught at the institute.

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About CIS
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The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration:

We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, IDRC and the Kusuma Trust 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/february-2014-bulletin

National Conference on Use of Technology in Higher Education

praskrishna — 2014-03-06T07:30:32Z

The Ministry of Human Resource and Development and Planning Commission in partnership with Microsoft Research and British Council organized a conference at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay on February 25, 2014.

Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the event as a panelist in the session on "Future of Content Creation".

Click to download the schedule.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/iitb-february-25-26-2014-national-conference-on-use-of-technology-in-higher-education

Pranesh Prakash: Influencing India's IP Laws

praskrishna — 2014-02-25T06:20:31Z

Pranesh Prakash believes intellectual property laws need to evolve and change with time.

Samar Srivastava's article was published in Forbes India Magazine on February 15, 2014.

At an age where his contemporaries are still junior litigators and aspiring lawyers, Pranesh Prakash, 28, is already a recognisable name in the filed of legal activism.

In 2013 he worked with the World Intellectual Property Organization to draft a treaty for the blind. It provides for an exception to copyright laws so that books can be converted into accessible formats for the blind and visually impaired, and exchanged across borders.

For Prakash the treaty capped a signal achievement in intellectual property and copyright—an area he has been working in since graduating from the National Law School, Bangalore. In his closing speech at the diplomatic conference at Marrakesh, Morocco, Prakash said: “When copyright doesn’t serve public welfare, states must intervene... Importantly, markets alone cannot be relied upon to achieve a just allocation of informational resources, as we have seen clearly from the book famine that the blind are experiencing.”

Prakash’s work on intellectual property has brought him recognition through affiliations: He is an Access to Knowledge Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. In 2012, he was selected as an Internet Freedom Fellow by the US State Department.

“I was always interested in doing public interest work,” says Prakash. An internship with activist lawyer Rajeev Dhawan cemented his desire. Prakash is now prominent in a line of thinkers working in the area of freedom of expression, internet governance and intellectual property.

It is clear that existing laws in these areas are inadequate and a new jurisprudential setup needs to evolve. For example, the same standards often apply to print and internet media; they fail to recognise that, say, tweets have a different impact than newspapers headlines.

Prakash’s criticism of governments blocking websites stood out, but his recommendations were not accepted. He proposed that all intermediaries, like the ISP and the domain host, not be bunched, and separate standards be imposed on them, based on their editorial role in content creation.

“What distinguishes his work is the impact it has on the public at large,” says Gautam John, head, Karnataka Learning Partnership at the Akshara Foundation. “His work in the area is cutting edge. There is no one doing that work.”

Then there is his work with Section 66A of the IT Act. Under the section, anyone who sends false, offensive or inappropriate content by a computer or communication device can be punished with three years of imprisonment. This section has been misused by the police. Prakash has long argued that the law must be more specific in what it defines as offensive, and that the government needs to engage more with civil society and industry to end the antagonistic and selective manner in which the law is imposed.

Efforts of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore, where Prakash is policy director, have resulted in rules being amended. Now, only officers of the rank of DCP and above can make an arrest. CIS, set up in 2008, has also made representations on the copyright law to Parliamentary Standing Committees.

Prakash’s activism has had another significant effect on intellectual property in India. By a 2008 Bill, the government had tried to privatise publicly-funded intellectual property. Prakash was part of a sustained campaign against the Bill, and in 2011 it was shelved.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/forbes-india-february-15-2014-samar-srivastava-pranesh-prakash-influencing-indias-ip-laws

Consultation on Institutional Arrangements for IP managment under MHRD

praskrishna — 2014-03-12T13:17:00Z

Planning Commission and MHRD jointly are having consultations to design institutional arrangements for IP management under the MHRD between 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on February 21, 2014 at IIC (Annexe), New Delhi 9 Lecture Hall No. 1).

Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this consultation.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/consultation-institutional-arrangements-ip-management-mhrd

Tewiki 10th Anniversary

rahim — 2014-03-19T11:01:01Z

Tewiki 10th anniversary celebration 2014, started on February 15 in Vijayawada at Kakaraparti Bhavanarayana College. It was co-organized by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team and the Telugu Wikipedia community. Ch.Arjuna Rao expressed his happiness on Telugu Wikipedias completion of 10 years and 55000 articles in Telugu on the inauguration of decade celebrations.

The full details are captured in the report published on the meta page. The following is an abridged version of the same in English.

The founding president of the Wikimedia India Chapter CH.Arjunarao , T.Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, CIS-A2K, President of the decade ceremonial committee BK Viswanath. K.B.N.college officials Sambasiva Rao, Rajith Kumar and Krishnamurthy inaugurated the function by Jyothi Prajwalana.

Talking on the occasion the chairman of Andhra Pradesh official languages commission Buddha Prasad said that 2014-15 must be declared as the year of the Telugu Wikipedia and to make the most of it by more exciting activities. Telugu Wikipedia has put in more efforts than governments and universities to the culture of the Telugu language. Many great personalities served Telugu language and culture were remembered in this occasion including Lakshmanrao, Mallampalli.

Telugu Computer: Past, Present, Future of the Convention

Komarraju Laxmana Rao Visishta Wikipedian award-winner Veeven organised an awareness seminar. Veeven talked about how in 2004, a decade ago, the Internet Telugu writing, and reading had many problems, and how by the year 2014 they got eliminated in the sequence. He also touched upon the future development of the technology used in the Telugu language. He said that Microsoft Office, Libre Office, Adobe In Design, Adobe Photoshop, etc., will be used as the applications in Telugu. Today Telugu is expected to be used in mobile phones, i. Pods, and this justifies the use of Android in Telugu.

Convention on Wikidata

Rahmanuddin spoke about wikidata. He explained in detail how linking an article in all languages is the first step and linking diagrams and figures is the second step and showed participants that in the third stage classification is included. He explained it with examples of the mango tree and the word 'mother'. After this he showed how the link the particular article to the word. Thereafter he spoke about the app developed by Tamil students to link a particular word to the article and urged that people should start using these apps early on in their life as then only development in this field would be possible.

Experiences of Other Language Wikipedians

Some Tamilians shared their experience in developing Tamil wiki. They said that government and other organisations have helped a lot in developing Tamil wiki. Government organisations helped a lot in filing data in digital form. Many educational institutions have take part in this project. Some even proposed that Tamil wiki might be made a part of the education for students. They said that they shared this info about Tamil wiki to various friends and organisations.

Odia wikipedian Mrutunjay said that they attached the voice app feature to help with pronounciation. They attached the Odiya files to English words so that it will be useful for easy search. He also mentioned that there is a lack of creative writers in Odisha and that they are trying to overcome this problem.

Malayalam wikipedian K.Manoj said that from wikisource Malayalam remains the topmost Indian language for obtaining various data from a specific language. He said that over 200 books and 800 articles were included in the Malayalam wiki. They organised the structure in such a way that students will be able to use it from a very early age. These books in wikisource were used by many students.Konkani wiki. Darsan said that in 2007 they started the Konkani wiki. Goa students made a significant contribution to the development of this project. They uploaded 290 articles till now and they are trying to digitalise konkani wiki and other projects to help them develop.

Making a substantial contribution to the Telugu Wikipedia Nisar Ahmed also spoke about the developments in Urdu Wikipedia. He came to share his experience with others. He said that Urdu language was born in India and in the globalized Urdu wikipedia there are only 2 or 3 Urdu wikipedians from India. He also spoke of the experiences of an article on national anthem and about the views of the Pakistani community.He further discussed about the difficulties in work caused by different countries, the available options and how to solve those problems and gain experiences.

More pictures of the event can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/tewiki-10-anniversary

Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 3)

ananth — 2014-02-14T05:13:36Z

In a three-part study, Ananth Padmanabhan examines the "John Doe" orders that courts have passed against ISPs, which entertainment companies have used to block dozens, if not hundreds, of websites. In this, the third and concluding part, he looks at the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act, and concludes that both those laws restrain courts and private companies from ordering an ISP to block a website for copyright infringement.

In the third part of his study, Ananth Padmanabhan looks into the fair use provisions recently introduced in respect of mere conduit intermediaries by the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012, and concludes that there is no scope for any general, or specific, access blocking orders at the behest of the plaintiff in a civil suit, in India. He also argues that the Information Technology Act, 2000 read with the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011 do not in any manner permit the Government to override the provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957 (as amended) while facilitating the denial of access to websites on grounds of copyright infringement, because the Copyright Act, 1957, is a complete code by itself.

Fair Use Provisions Introduced by the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012

In 2010, the controversial Copyright (Amendment) Bill came up for deliberation before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development headed by Mr. Oscar Fernandes. While a major part of the discussion on this amendment revolved around the altered royalty structure and rights allocation between music composers and lyricists on the one hand and film producers on the other, it can be safely stated that this is the most significant amendment to the Copyright Act, 1957 for more than this one reason. The amendment seeks to reform the Copyright Board, bring in a scheme of statutory licenses, expand the scope of performers’ rights and introduce anti-circumvention measures to check copyright piracy. As part of its ambitious objective, the amendment also attempts a new fair use model to protect intermediaries and file-sharing websites.

The Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012, which gives expression to this fair use model through Sections 52(1)(b) and (c), reads thus:

52. Certain acts not to be infringement of copyright. - (1) The following acts shall not constitute an infringement of copyright, namely:

(a) to (ad) - *****

(b) the transient or incidental storage of a work or performance purely in the technical process of electronic transmission or communication to the public;

(c) transient or incidental storage of a work or performance for the purpose of providing electronic links, access or integration, where such links, access or integration has not been expressly prohibited by the right holder, unless the person responsible is aware or has reasonable grounds for believing that such storage is of an infringing copy:

Provided that if the person responsible for the storage of the copy has received a written complaint from the owner of copyright in the work, complaining that such transient or incidental storage is an infringement, such person responsible for the storage shall refrain from facilitating such access for a period of twenty-one days or till he receives an order from the competent court refraining from facilitating access and in case no such order is received before the expiry of such period of twenty-one days, he may continue to provide the facility of such access;

From a plain reading, it is clear that two important exceptions are carved out: one, in respect of the technical process of electronic transmission and the other, in respect of providing electronic links, access or integration. The material distinction between these exceptions is the presence of a take-down proviso in respect of the latter kind of activity, ie. when providing electronic links, access or integration. This window of opportunity is not provided to the copyright owner when the third party is an ISP involved in the pure technical process of electronic transmission of data.

In R.K. Productions, the court was not informed of the introduction of these provisions vide the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012, despite the hearing happening on a date subsequent to the amendment coming into force. This probably influenced the outcome as well, since the court held that ISPs were liable to block access to infringing content, once the specific webpage was brought to the notice of the concerned ISP. Newly introduced Section 52(1)(b) however makes it abundantly clear that ISPs cannot, in any manner, be held liable when they are acting as mere conduit pipes for the transmission of information. This legal position is also materially different from jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom where, the ISPs though not liable for copyright infringement, are statutorily mandated to lend all possible assistance such as take-down or blocking of access upon notice of infringement being furnished to them. This dichotomy between liability for infringement on the one hand and a general duty to assist in the prevention of infringement on the other is explained clearly by the Chancery Division in Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation v. British Telecommunications Plc.[1]

In Newzbin2, the Chancery Division took note of the safe harbour provisions created by the E-Commerce Directive,[2] particularly Articles 12 to 14 that dealt with acting as a “mere conduit”, caching and hosting respectively. The interesting feature with the “mere conduit” exception, which in all other respects is akin to the exception contained in Section 52(1)(b) of the Copyright Act, 1957, is the additional presence of Article 12(3). This provision clarifies that the “mere conduit” exception shall not stand in the way of a court or administrative authority requiring the service provider to terminate or prevent an infringement. Article 18 of this Directive also casts an obligation upon Member States to ensure that court actions available under national law permit the rapid adoption of measures, including interim measures, designed to terminate any alleged infringement and to prevent any further impairment of the interests involved. Similarly, the court looked into the Information Society Directive,[3]

Article 8(3) of which provides that “Member States shall ensure that rightholders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe a copyright or related right.” This Directive was transposed into the domestic law in UK by the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003, SI 2003/2498, resulting in the insertion of Section 97A in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This provision empowers the court to grant an injunction against a service provider who has actual knowledge of another person using their service to infringe copyright, such as where the service provider is given sufficient notice of the infringement. Finally, the Chancery Division also took note of the Enforcement Directive,[4]

Article 11 of which provided that Member States shall ensure that copyright owners are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe an intellectual property right. This entire legislative scheme compelled the court in Newzbin2 to conclude that an order of injunction could be granted against ISPs who are “mere conduits”, restraining them from providing access to websites that indulged in mass copyright infringement. The court reasoned that the language used in Section 97A did not require knowledge of any particular infringement but only a more general kind of knowledge about certain persons using the ISPs’ services to infringe copyright. Thus, it is seen that in the United Kingdom, though a “mere conduit” activity is not infringement at all, the concerned ISP can be directed by the court to block access to a website that hosts infringing content on the basis of the above legislative scheme. The enquiry should therefore be directed towards whether India has a similar scheme for copyright enforcement.

The Information Technology Act – An Inapplicable Scheme for Website Blocking

The Information Technology Act, 2000[5]read with certain recently framed guidelines provides for a duty that could be thrust upon even “mere conduit” ISPs to disable access to copyrighted works. This is due to the presence of Section 79(2)(c) of this Act, which makes it clear that an intermediary shall be exempt from liability only where the intermediary observes due diligence as well as complies with the other guidelines framed by the Central Government in this behalf. Moreover, Section 79(3) provides that the intermediary shall not be entitled to the benefit of the exemption in Section 79(1) in a situation where the intermediary, upon receiving actual knowledge that any information, data, or communication link residing in or connected to a computer resource controlled by the intermediary is being used to commit an unlawful act, fails to expeditiously remove or disable access to that material on that resource without vitiating the evidence in any manner. In pursuance of Section 79(2)(c), the Central Government has also framed the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011, which came into effect on 11.04.2011. Rule 4 of these Rules, when read along with Rule 2(d), casts obligation on an intermediary on whose computer system, copyright infringing content has been stored, hosted or published, to disable such information within thirty six hours from when it is brought to actual knowledge of the existence of such content by any affected person.

One way of understanding and interpreting in harmonious fashion, the provisions of the IT Act and the Rules therein and the recent amendments to the Copyright Act, is to contend that the issue of infringement of copyright by “mere conduit” ISPs is governed by Section 52(1)(b), which completely absolves them of any liability, while that of enforcement of copyright through the medium of such ISPs is governed by the IT Act. This bifurcation suffers from the difficulty that Section 79 of the IT Act is not an enforcement provision. It is a provision meant to exempt intermediaries from certain kinds of liability, in the same way as Section 52 of the Copyright Act. This provision, read with Section 81, makes it clear that the IT Act does not speak to liability for copyright infringement. From this, it has to necessarily follow that all issues pertaining to liability for such infringement have to be decided by the provisions of the Copyright Act. Therefore, the scheme in the IT Act read with the Intermediaries Guidelines Rules cannot confer additional liability for copyright infringement on ISPs where the Copyright Act exempts them from liability. More to the point, the intermediary cannot be liable for copyright infringement in the event of non-compliance with Section 79(3) or Rule 4 of the Intermediaries Guidelines Rules read with Section 79(1)(c) of the IT Act. Rule 4 of the Intermediaries Guidelines Rules, 2011, to the extent that it renders intermediaries outside the protective ambit of Section 79(1) upon failure to disable access to copyrighted content, is of no relevance as “mere conduits” have already been exempted from liability under Section 52(1)(b). Moreover, since these provisions in the IT Act do not deal with enforcement measures such as injunction orders from the court to disable access to infringing content in particular or infringing websites in general, it would be wrong to contend that the scheme in India is similar to the one in the United Kingdom where the issue of infringement has been divorced from that of enforcement.

To conclude, Section 52(1)(b) is a blanket “mere conduit” exemption from liability for copyright infringement that stands uninfluenced by the presence of Section 79 of the IT Act or the Intermediaries Guidelines Rules. In the absence of a legislative scheme for enforcement in India akin to Section 97A of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, Indian Courts cannot grant an injunction directing such “mere conduit” ISPs to block access to websites in general or infringing content in particular and any such action is not even maintainable in law post the insertion of Section 52(1)(b). The decision to the contrary in the R.K.Productions case is incorrect.

[1]. [2011] EWHC 1981 (Ch.). Hereinafter referred to as Newzbin2.

[2]. European Parliament and Council Directive 2000/31/EC on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (8 June 2000). This Directive was transposed into the domestic law in UK by the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002, SI 2002/2013.

[3]. European Parliament and Council Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society (22 May 2001).

[4]. European Parliament and Council Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (29 April 2004). This Directive was transposed into the UK domestic law primarily by the Intellectual Property (Enforcement, etc.) Regulations 2006, SI 2006/1028.

[5]. Hereinafter referred to as the IT Act.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/john-doe-orders-isp-blocking-websites-copyright-3

୧୦ ବର୍ଷରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ୱିକିପିଡିଆ

praskrishna — 2014-03-06T05:38:58Z

This is a feature about Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary and the story of a dead volunteer community reviving after 8 years. This has been published in Rabibara Sambad (Sunday supplement of Odia newspaper The Sambad) on February 9, 2014.

Click to read the original published in Odiya here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/rabibara-sambad-february-9-2014-feature-on-odia-wikipedia-tenth-anniversary

Father-son duo promote Punjabi online

praskrishna — 2014-02-06T01:52:17Z

A father-son duo has been working to include more information about Punjab and Punjabi on Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia.

The article by Jatinder Preet was published in the Sunday Guardian on February 1, 2014.

Charan Gill and his son Satdeep Gill have written hundreds of articles in English, Hindi and Punjabi in both Shahmukhi and Gurmukhi scripts. The father-son duo recently represented Punjabi in the first ever Train the Trainer Program in India, held at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) in Bangalore. The four-day event was organised for capacity building amongst Wikimedia volunteers for effective and efficient outreach programs in their respective regions to expand the Wikimedia movement in India, informed Charan Gill.

Satdeep Gill, a graduate student at Punjabi University, Patiala was already a contributor to the Punjabi Wikipedia when he attended a workshop held by veteran Punjabi Wikipedian G.S. Guglani. Satdeep became quite active after the workshop and soon his father too joined in. Charan informs he has contributed around 2700 articles, while Satdeep who is one of the administrators, has written around 600 pages. When he started there were around 3000 articles and there were too many factual and other errors, said Charan. He started editing older articles and adding newer ones along with Satdeep. There were others who joined in and now it has around 8700 articles. "Our target is to reach 10,000 by April," said Charan.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/sunday-guardian-february-1-2014-jatinder-preet-father-son-duo-promote-punjabi-online

Bitcoin & Open Source with Aaron Koenig

praskrishna — 2014-02-06T01:40:24Z

Aaron Koenig, director of bitfilm.org and a global Bitcoin entrepreneur will give a talk at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore on February 7 at 6.00 p.m.

Learn more about Bitcoin and its global path as we explore concepts and ideaologies behind the technology behemoth.


Above is an image of a Bitcoin Expert giving a presentation. Image source: http://bit.ly/1keLpwi

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/bitcoin-and-open-source-aaron-koenig

Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 2)

ananth — 2014-03-06T16:48:18Z

In a three-part study, Ananth Padmanabhan examines the "John Doe" orders that courts have passed against ISPs, which entertainment companies have used to block dozens, if not hundreds, of websites. In this, the second part, he looks at the law laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court on secondary and contributory copyright infringement, and finds that those wouldn't allow Indian courts to grant "John Doe" orders against ISPs.

In the second part of his study, Ananth Padmanabhan proceeds to examine applying a general theory of secondary or contributory copyright infringement against ISPs. He traces the basis for holding a third party liable as a contributory by closely examining the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court in Sony Corp. v Universal City Studios[1] and MGM Studios, Inc. v Grokster, Ltd.[2] and concludes that this basis does not hold good in the case of a mere conduit intermediary such as an ISP.

[1]. 464 U.S. 417 (1984). Hereinafter referred to as Betamax.

[2]. 545 U.S. 913 (2005). Hereinafter referred to as Grokster.

Primary and Secondary Infringement

Liability for copyright infringement can either be primary or secondary in character. In the case of ISPs, liability as primary infringers does not arise at all, and it is in their capacity as conduit pipes facilitating the transmission of information that they could be held secondarily liable. Even in such cases, the contention of copyright owners is that once the ISP is notified of infringing content, it has the primary responsibility of preventing access to such content. This contention is essentially rooted in a theory of secondary infringement based on knowledge and awareness, and the means to prevent further infringement.

The controversy around a suitable model of secondary infringement is reflected in two judicial pronouncements – separated by a gap of more than two decades – delivered by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Sony Corp. v Universal City Studios,[3] the US Supreme Court held that the manufacturers of home video recording devices known in the market as Betamax would not be liable to copyright owners for secondary infringement since the technology was capable of substantially non-infringing and legitimate purposes. The U.S. Supreme Court even observed that these time-shifting devices would actually enhance television viewership and hence find favour with majority of the copyright holders too. The majority did concede that in an appropriate situation, liability for secondary infringement of copyright could well arise. In the words of the Court, “vicarious liability is imposed in virtually all areas of the law, and the concept of contributory infringement is merely a species of the broader problem of identifying the circumstances in which it is just to hold one individual accountable for the actions of another”. However, if vicarious liability had to be imposed on the manufactures of the time-shifting devices, it had to rest on the fact that they sold equipment with constructive knowledge of the fact that their customers may use that equipment to make unauthorized copies of copyrighted material. In the view of the Court, there was no precedent in the law of copyright for the imposition of vicarious liability merely on the showing of such fact.

Notes of dissent were struck by Justice Blackmun, who wrote an opinion on behalf of himself and three other judges. The learned Judge noted that there was no private use exemption in favour of making of copies of a copyrighted work and hence, unauthorised time-shifting would amount to copyright infringement. He also concluded that there was no fair use in such activity that would exempt it from the purview of infringement. The dissent held the manufacturer liable as a contributory infringer and reasoned that the test for contributory infringement would only be whether the contributory infringer had reason to know or believe that infringement would take place and not whether he actually knew of the same. Off-the-air recording was not only a foreseeable use for the Betamax, but also its intended use, for which Sony would be liable for copyright infringement.

This dissent has considerably influenced the seemingly contrarian position taken by the majority in the subsequent decision, MGM Studios, Inc. v Grokster, Ltd.[4] This case called into question the liability of websites that facilitated peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing. Re-formulating the test for copyright infringement, the US Supreme Court held that ‘one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties’. In re-drawing the boundaries of contributory infringement, the Court observed that contributory infringement is committed by any person who intentionally induces or encourages direct infringement, and vicarious infringement is committed by those who profit from direct infringement while declining to exercise their right to limit or stop it. When an article of commerce was good for nothing else but infringement, there was no legitimate public interest in its unlicensed availability and there would be no injustice in presuming or imputing intent to infringe in such cases. This doctrine would at the same time absolve the equivocal conduct of selling an item with substantial lawful as well as unlawful uses and would limit the liability to instances of more acute fault than the mere understanding that some of the products shall be misused, thus ensuring that innovation and commerce are not unreasonably hindered.

The Court distinguished the case at hand from Betamax, and noted that there was evidence here of active steps taken by the respondents to encourage direct copyright infringement, such as advertising an infringing use or instructing how to engage in an infringing use. This evidence revealed an affirmative intent that the product be used to infringe, and an active encouragement of infringement. Without reversing the decision in Betamax, but holding that it was misinterpreted by the lower court, the Court observed that Betamax was not an authority for the proposition that whenever a product was capable of substantial lawful use, the producer could never be held liable as a contributory for the use of such product for infringing activity by third parties. In the view of the Court, Betamax did not displace other theories of secondary liability. This other theory of secondary liability applicable to the case at hand was held to be the inducement rule, as per which any person who distributed a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as evidenced by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, would be liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties. However, the Court clarified that mere knowledge of infringing potential or of actual infringing uses would not be enough under this rule to subject a distributor to liability. Similarly, ordinary acts incident to product distribution, such as offering customers technical support or product updates, support liability etc. would not by themselves attract the operation of this rule. The inducement rule, instead, premised liability on purposeful, culpable expression and conduct, and thus did nothing to compromise legitimate commerce or discourage innovation having a lawful promise.

These seemingly divergent views on secondary infringement expressed by the U.S. Supreme Court are of significant relevance for India, due to the peculiar language used in the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.[4]

Section 51 of the Act, which defines infringement, bifurcates the two types of infringement – ie. primary and secondary infringement – without indicating so in as many words. While Section 51(a)(i) speaks to primary infringers, 51(a)(ii) and 51(b) renders certain conduct to be secondary infringement. Even here, there is an important distinction between 51(a)(ii) and 51(b). The former exempts the alleged infringer from liability if he could establish that he was not aware and had no reasonable ground for believing that the communication to the public, facilitated through the use of his “place”, would amount to copyright infringement. The latter on the other hand permits no such exception. Thus, any person, who makes for sale or hire, or by way of trade displays or offers for sale or hire, or distributes for the purpose of trade, or publicly exhibits by way of trade, or imports into India, any infringing copies of a work, shall be liable for infringement, without any specific mens rea required to attract such liability. It is in the context of the former provision, ie. 51(a)(ii) that the liability of certain file-sharing websites for copyright infringement has arisen.[5]

Mere Conduit ISPs – Secondary Infringement Absent

In MySpace, the Delhi High Court examined the liability for secondary infringement on the part of a website that provides a platform for file-sharing. While holding the website liable, the Single Judge considered material certain facts such as the revenue model of the defendant, which depended largely on advertisements displayed on the webpages, and automatically generated advertisements that would come up for a few seconds before the infringing video clips started playing. Shockingly, the Court even considered relevant the fact that the defendant did provide for safeguards such as hash block filters, take down stay down functionality, and rights management tools operational through fingerprinting technology, to prevent or curb infringing activities being carried on in their website. This, in the view of the Court, made it evident that the defendant had a reasonable apprehension or belief that the acts which were being carried on in the website could infringe someone else’s copyright including that of the plaintiff. The logic employed by the Court to attribute liability for secondary infringement on file-sharing websites is befuddling and reveals complete disregard for the degree of regulatory authority available on the internet even where the space, i.e., the website, is supposedly “under the control” of a person. However, a critical examination of this decision is not relevant in understanding the liability of mere conduit ISPs. This is for the reason that none of the factual considerations relied on by the Single Judge to justify imposition of liability on a file-sharing website under Section 51(a)(ii) arise when the defendant is an ISP that only provides the path for content-neutral transmission of data.

This was completely ignored by the Madras High Court in R.K.Productions v. B.S.N.L.,[6] where the producers of the Tamil film “3”, which enjoyed considerable pre-release buzz due to its song “Kolaveri Di”, sought an omnibus order of injunction against all websites that host torrents or links facilitating access to, or download of, this film. Though this was worded as a John Doe plaint by branding the infringers as unknown administrators of different torrent sites and so on, the real idea was to look to the resources and wherewithal of the known defendants, ie. the ISPs, to block access to the content hosted by the unknown defendants.

This prompted the ISPs to file applications under Or. VII, Rule 11 of the Civil Procedure Code, seeking rejection of the plaint on the ground that the suit against them was barred by law. The Single Judge of the Madras High Court dismissed these applications for rejection of the plaint, after accepting the contention that the ISPs are necessary parties to the suit as the act of piracy occurs through the channel or network provided by them. The High Court heavily, and incorrectly, relied on MySpace without appreciating the distinction between a mere conduit ISP and a file-sharing website such as MySpace or YouTube, as regards their respective roles and responsibilities, the differing degrees of regulatory control over content enjoyed by them, and most importantly, the recognition and formalisation of these distinctions in the Copyright Act, 1957, vide the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012.

[3]. 464 U.S. 417 (1984). Hereinafter referred to as Betamax.

[4]. 545 U.S. 913 (2005). Hereinafter referred to as Grokster.

[5]. Hereinafter the Act.

[6]. Super Cassette Industries Ltd. v MySpace Inc., MIPR 2011 (2) 303 (hereinafter referred to as MySpace). This decision of the Delhi High Court has been rightly criticised. See http://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/super-cassettes-v-my-space (last accessed on 24.03.2013).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/john-doe-orders-isp-blocking-websites-copyright-2

The Dynamics of Education to Employment Journey: Opportunities and Challenges

praskrishna — 2014-04-14T09:40:19Z

KIIT School of Management, KIIT Univeristy is holding the 7th National Management Convention 2014 at its campus in Bhubaneswar on February 21 and 22, 2014. T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi have been invited to address the students of KIIT University.

Click to download the event brochure

Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi spoke at the event and also evaluated submissions by students and researchers. Subhashish's presentation titled Redefining Education to Employment Journey: Voices of the Youth/Students can be accessed here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/dynamics-of-education-to-employment-journey

Tech-savvy students given tips to enter IT field

praskrishna — 2014-02-02T16:48:47Z

Students from any academic background, but having computer knowledge and common sense, can land a job in the IT sector, said U B Pavanaja, programme officer (Indian languages) at Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore).

The article published by the Times of India on January 31, 2014, quotes Dr. U.B. Pavanaja.

Conducting a session on 'How to get placed in IT sector' organized by Centre for Proficiency Development and Placement services (CPDPS) here on Thursday, he said: "Students of any stream can be an expert in the IT sector. But (s)he must be well aware about IT sector and should stay updated to sustain there," he said, adding: "The ever-growing IT sector offers many opportunities. Around 90 lakh job opportunities are created every year. The sector's contribution to the nation's economy stands at 7.5%."

Speaking on the pre-requisites to land jobs, Pavanaja said: "One need not necessarily have high technical skills for that. All they need is an ability to work on the required skills."

"IT is being applied in almost all fields. Graduates and PU or diploma holders can also land jobs in IT. Those having writing skills, and also having minimum computer knowledge, can also be hired as content writers," he said, citing examples.

Speaking on mobile technology and its applications, he said, "Nearly 70% of 'likes' on a popular video-sharing website are done through cellphones. Mobile technology is a fast developing sector. Numerous applications are being developed and added on a regular basis. Compared to software, mobile apps are ease and less expensive to develop. With good knowledge, mobile apps can be developed even at home."

CPDPS director Niranajana Vanalli said the talk was organized to help IT job aspirants be industry-ready.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-january-31-2014-tech-savvy-students-given-tips-to-enter-it-field

Odia Wikipedia: Three Years of Active Contributions Gives Life to a Ten Year Old Project

subha — 2014-02-04T08:56:35Z

Odia Wikipedia has carved its mark as the largest online encyclopedia in Odia language that is edited by a volunteer editor community.

This was published by HASTAC on January 31, 2014.

By 29th of January this year it is 10 year old and 5000 articles rich. Though this was started as one of the first four Indic language Wikipedias. In 2011 there were only 550 articles with practically no contributors. The initial Wikipedians struggled to reach out to more people. Luckily, with more people coming on the Internet – primarily on social media platforms, collaboration became easier. Odia Wikipedia’s facebook page and group became the social gateway to get used to working within the Odia language. This is one of the languages which has very little online presence when it comes to having content as Unicode text. Many people still struggle with the outdated pirated operating systems installed in their computers which added more hurdles in the way of all the community led Wikipedia outreach programs. There has been more developments in recent days in language input and online contribution in Odia. More people started searching for online content using Odia in Unicode. This is where Odia Wikipedia played a crucial role in promoting a massive growth in content which is reflected in the readership. Monthly page views which remained consistently low over the years started growing from less than 1000 to more than 400,000 and at times hitting the 500,000 mark. This is the highest among all the websites that have Odia content. With a variety of new projects and more contributors than ever, Wikipedia Odia happily celebrated its its 10th anniversary over two days. Odia Wikipedians gathered in two different educational institutes; Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences in Bhubaneswar on the 28th of January and Indian Institute of Mass Communication in Dhenkanal on the 29th.

Day 1

First day of Odia Wikipedia 10 began with the traditional Chhena poda by noted linguist Padmashree Dr. Debiprasanna Patnaik. Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) has recently collaborated with The Centre for Internet and Society for the resource gathering, documentation and archival of 62 tribal communities of Odisha and neighboring eastern Indian states and initiating Wikipedia projects in the indigenous tribal languages. The first few phase of the workshop brought about 15 students pursuing their masters in Arts, Science and Commerce disciplines and 10 faculty members.

This project also will also dovetail into the Mother Tongue based Multilingual Lab that has been set up in the institute to foster educational materials in tribal languages. Dr. Patnaik spoke to these contributors about the native languages and the importance of documenting language and cultural heritage online. Subrat Prusty, General Secretary of Janasammilani and founding member of Odia Biswabidyalaya gave a talk on the factors that have diminished the native languages and how collaborative efforts could revive dying languages through a 5000 word free-license dictionary in Odia. With the audio recording of Dr. Patnaik introducing himself, Odia Wikipedians inaugurated the Voice intro project as the first Indic language project. Odia Wikipedians interacted with the students and teachers at KISS to get their inputs on the kind of knowledge imparted by introducing Wikipedia editing. Later these will streamline the process of writing to the linguistic team for pledging for the classical language status of Odia.

Day 2

The second day of Odia Wikipedia 10 was celebrated in the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) Dhenkanal campus . Students who had participated in the series of Odia Wikipedia workshops earlier in the year took part in this event. Sampad Mohapatra, a TV and print media journalist inaugurated the event by lighting Dipa and cutting a birthday Chenapoda. Mohapatra shared his experiences on how the entire media industry relies on Wikipedia for collecting information and how contribution in regional languages will benefit the students through more job availability in the regional media. Professor Dr. Mrinal Chatterjee who heads the institution shared the way accessing knowledge is slowly moving to internet based search. He discussed strategies of how bringing more online content in regional languages will help the academia and the students. Usha Padhee, Secretary of Mass Education Department, Odisha Government distributed awards to the top Wikipedia contributors. She later presented on the role of media in educating society and Open Educational Resources in new tools of imparting knowledge.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/hastac-january-31-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikipedia

Odia Wikipedia (Coverage in Sanchar)

praskrishna — 2014-02-04T07:38:30Z

Sanchar published about Odia Wikipedia in their edition on January 31. Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/odia-wikipedia-coverage-in-sanchar

Access to Knowledge

anirudh — 2014-05-22T04:48:41Z

Unit 4 of Module 2 discusses the right to access knowledge, patents and copyright. There is also a case study of Oxbridge Textbooks.

Introduction

In the middle of the 16th century, Queen Mary was faced with a difficult question that was brought to her by none other than most powerful publishing house in England at the time. The Stationers, like any other craft guild in the business of printing and producing books loved a monopoly in the profits of their books and terribly feared competition.[1] Therefore, they went to Queen Mary with the request of a royal charter. This charter would allow them to seize illicit editions of their books and bar the publication of books unlicensed by the crown. The Queen suddenly thought that this could indeed be a more efficient way to squash sedition and dissent through censorship by puppeteering this craft guild than previous, perhaps less subtle means like torture and death. In 1557, she granted them this early form of a copyright. Notice how the author or the creator of the work has no place in this agreement and the origins of intellectual property in English law are based on privilege, namely power and profit. This rhetoric, however, changes with the coming of the 18^th century and the passing of the Act of Anne in 1707 to one of creativity and learning. The concern for the author has a steady positivist rise after this in the tug of war over intellectual property. In the case Miller v Taylor in 1769, the author sought to extend copyright to common law. Three judges ruled in favor of this motion and two judges ruled against.[2]

A closer examination at the reasoning provided by the three assenting judges will tell us almost all the philosophical justifications of intellectual property. The first judge called upon his notion of justice and said it is just that the author control the destiny of his work as it is a product of his labor. The second judge said that extending the copyright would encourage creativity by making the work the creator’s property. The third judge said it is the authors natural right as the work wouldn’t exist if not for the mental labor of the author. Together, justice, incentives and natural rights are the cornerstones of the justifications of intellectual property.

Although history is littered with theories on property, there have been only sparse discussions on intellectual property. The question then arises, can intellectual property be accommodated within normal property. The similarity is in the fact that intellectual property is also a relationship between people but the difference lies in the fact that the object is an abstract one.[3]

This leads many to believe that it cannot be subject to the same rules of property. The first dissenting judge in Miller v Taylor, for example, said that abstract ideas cannot be occupied like corporeal objects so they cannot be property. He said the author deserves a reward which the Act of Anne provides in the form of limited monopoly but that’s about it. In fact, an idea is almost the perfect example of a resource like the air or light that is not zero sum and inexhaustible in that my use of it doesn’t take away from your use of it. Neither air nor light can become personal property which leaves ideas in a property limbo. This leaves room for very interesting discussions and debates over the existence of intellectual property and the place it should occupy in society. This discourse has largely taken two forms: the deontological and the consequentialist. Deontological justifications for IP come from a priori reasons like rights or duties which can be established in many forms. There is the ontological basis for rights which answers questions like whether rights exist and if so, where they come from. One of the preeminent figures in this discourse has been John Locke, an English philosopher whose argument for individual property as “natural rights” remains relevant even today when applied to intellectual property. Locke’s major assumptions in his claim were:

God has given the world to people in common.
Every person owns his own personality.
A person’s labor belongs to him.
When a person mixes his labor with something in the commons he makes it his property.
The right of property is contingent upon its being good for commoners.[4]

In order to extend this argument, Locke says that exclusive ownership of a resource is a precondition for production. Ideas before labored upon by people, however, are not exclusively owned which resists the cross application of his ideas to intellectual property. Another impediment in extending the natural right to intellectual property is the 5th assumption. Intellectual labor, in annexing an idea, stops it from becoming a part of the intellectual commons. If this labor, armed with the property of becoming property is doing a disservice to society, then it may not be a natural right at all. The notion that ideas are a part of the intellectual commons is also one that needed evidence and Locke found that in scripture as Judeo-Christian philosophy clearly advocates the idea of all worldly resources being part of the commons.

Hegel, on the other hand, took the route of personality theory. He argued that if individuals have claims to anything, they had to be considered an individual first. He states that in order to be individuals, people must have a moral claim to things like their character traits, feelings, talents and experience.[5] The definition of these aspects or the process of self-actualization requires an interaction with tangible and intangible objects in the world. The external actualization process requires property that includes intellectual property for Hegel as he sees the works as an extension or an establishment of the self in the external world that embody the person’s personality in an inseparable and even immortal way.

Another form is in linguistics, where we ask questions like what we mean when we say rights and property. Skinner said that in the history of intellectual property law, the social context of its use and the matrix of assumptions involved in reference is the determining factor. This is why the history of intellectual property is as important as and to the philosophical underpinnings.

The consequentialist justifications of IP assume that the specious connection between IP and creativity is fact and warn of a chilling effect on creative activity in the absence of IP. History shows us that the relationship between IP and creativity is local and contingent rather than necessary and universal. Imperial China, for example, was a creative and inventive empire that gave rise to many technologies and artistic subcultures without any promise of IP. Indeed, Marx’s historical materialism could be seen as condemning IP as a superstructural phenomenon in the industrial development phase of capitalist societies and one that a future society can function well without.[6] If one was interested in the consequentialist debate over IP, then historical empirical data would be more important than an a priori analysis.

The lack of a definitive philosophical, ethical or normative justification for the existence of Intellectual Property rights unlike those for free expression or equal treatment under the law shows us that its application needs to be tempered with other considerations. If, as Rawls suggested, we hide behind the veil of ignorance and tried to form an ideal society, then IP may not feature within it as it tends to create social stratification and further marginalizes the least advantaged in social life and democratic culture.[7] Since IP’s are liberty intrusive privileges that do not “allow the most extensive liberty compatible with a like liberty for all.” or “benefit the least advantaged.” or are “open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.”, their utilitarian claims of creativity have to answer to the injustices that manifest from them before they get a carte blanche in society.

The access to knowledge has been a yearning of society to shift and dilute the concentration of this most precious of resources because of the old adage “knowledge is power”. This concept, however, can be understood from many lenses including the sociological and the legal. At first, in order to understand the importance of the legal entities under access to knowledge, we must explore its saliency in society.

Humanity world over is at the cusp of a major shift in the production, consumption, dissemination and distribution of knowledge. This warrants changes in frameworks of looking at knowledge, information and data in the digital era at multiple levels and by multiple players including students, academics, entrepreneurs, researchers, civil society and the State. In order to understand why and how knowledge matters in the world today, we must see how it makes a difference in our world and how it materially changes the world.

Many prominent economists and social theorists have sought to claim that knowledge has affected the organization of society in a manner that is different than in previous eras though knowledge has been an organizing principle of society throughout history. How the exact time of the shift and the nature of the shift are catalogued will depend on what category the basis is. From an economic perspective, Marx said that the capitalist system depends on the constant improvement and dynamism of technology. The real understanding of the role of knowledge in our economy came when Robert Solow posited that the majority of economic growth in the beginning of the 20th century was less due to labor or capital and more due to technological changes. These advances in knowledge came in the form of new machines to new production techniques that made the production process more efficient.[8]

Fritz Machlup stated that in the 1960’s the change in the knowledge intensity of the economy was marked by “an increase in the share of ‘knowledge-producing’ labor in total employment.” The Harvard historian Daniel Bell observed in his study of post-industrial societies that 1/3^rd of the US workers were employed in the service industry at the turn of the century but by the 1980’s almost 7/10^ths of the workers were employed in the service industries.[9]

People who were employed in the industrial sectors were flocking steadily to finance, education, information technology and the cultural industry. The movements of people came as a reaction to the movement of profitability from industrial sectors to finance, biotechnology and information technology. Knowledge basically is a positive feedback loop which means that as more information and communication technologies emerge, it allows more innovation. Manuel Castell categorizes this shift in the place of knowledge as a global one even though it’s concentrated in a few wealthy countries because all the economies ultimately depend on the global one. The disparity between countries is still massive but it used to be just in terms of raw materials and manufactured goods but now at a global level, there is a huge knowledge (high technology low technology, high knowledge services low knowledge services) disparity between wealthy and non-wealthy countries. This claim may seem to imply that knowledge is simply technical and scientific, but there are obviously other important kinds of knowledge like ethical and humanities knowledge. The point here is that the enhanced ability of humans to organize and employ specific kinds of technical and scientific knowledge has created a huge shift in the global economy similar to the effect of the increase in access to knowledge from the invention of printing press. This shift in the importance of knowledge has made our health better as well. The average lifespan has increased exponentially in the past half century and it is our scientific advancement in the mechanisms of disease and medicine that has aided this achievement.

When there is so much integral societal dependence on knowledge, the non market production of knowledge is essential for equality in access to this knowledge. Yochai Benkler stated that the processing power of the modern computers linked together on the internet creates a platform that allows for new kinds of collaboration. Apart from new kinds of political activism, it also leads to decentralized knowledge production like open source/ free software and Wikipedia.

Within this context of the digital turn, openness and transparency are gaining newer significance. On the one hand emerging participatory models of openness like Wikipedia[10] are increasingly pushing us to look beyond the traditional models of the bygone century;[11] on the other hand these models are being thought of to be effective even in governance and policy making. Open data,[12] for instance is becoming a key prerequisite for the State and civil society alike in imagining better governance models. This could potentially create a pre-condition for the transformation of society into a ‘Knowledge Society’, wherein the citizen is increasingly repositioned from a ‘spectator’ to ‘spect-actor’.[13] Eventually, the distinction between a knowledge society and governance could get blurred. However, this process needs strong civil society players to catalyze and cultivate an effective knowledge society. Such work happens at multiple layers of policy coupled with advocacy, research, dissemination and infrastructure creation. The larger policy debate happens in the form of a contest between understandings of knowledge. The two sides are knowledge as property versus knowledge as a common resource. This tension is explored in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Right to Access to Knowledge

The discourse around the access to knowledge has been around for a while as it is inscribed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted in 1948. Article 27 of the charter attempts to bring about a balance between the right of access and the protection of material interests.

Article 27[14]

Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Here, many academics and Access to Knowledge theorists posit that the right to access to knowledge is the more important right. This is because the right to material protection or rather the Intellectual Property (IP) right is ultimately for sale and transferrable so is not inalienable like the right to access to knowledge. Many right to knowledge theorists are of the opinion that the level of IP protection currently in place in the world is too much.

In 1996, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)[15] was adopted by the General Assembly of the UN. As we may expect, the right to free speech has a longer history of acceptance and positivist outlook on it. Article 19 of the ICCPR reads as follows:

“Article 19.

Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.
The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
- For respect of the rights or reputations of others;
- For the protection of national security or of public order (order public), or of public health or morals.” (Italics are mine)

The idea that free speech includes the right to seek and receive is something that will be discussed in the chapter on free speech but the important positive externality or reading that one can glean from this wording is that the access to knowledge becomes a right.


Above: Google books Ngram Viewer

However, as you can see in the graph, the discourse around Access to knowledge doesn’t begin to really take off until the early 1960’s when the U.S government was just starting to build a network between computers. In the early stages of the modern internet around the early 1980’s the discourse around access to knowledge becomes even more frequent. This is because intellectual property rights started to eclipse the astronomical increase in the production of knowledge and vast portions of the world’s population remained in the dark. Especially, the production of academic knowledge has increased exponentially in the recent past which has made it essential that the barriers to this knowledge are attenuated as much as possible.Now that we have explored the sociological aspect of access to knowledge and the philosophical debates around it, let us look at how it is codified in law. Specifically we will look at copyright and patents.

Patents

What are Patents?

Of all forms of intellectual property rights (IPR) patents are said to be the most restrictive, granted to inventors of devices or processes on the basis that the invention is novel, can be applied for a useful function, andinvolves an inventive step (and may not be obvious to a professional in the relevant field).

Under Indian patent law, a patent is a statutory right for an invention, giving the inventor the exclusivity to prevent others from making, using, or selling the invention—unless, of course, they are to receive permission from the right holder and pay the necessary royalty fees to do so. For this reason, a patent holder is said to have a monopoly over the invention. [16] In return for this exclusivity, the right holder must disclose a detailed, accurate and complete written description of the invention to be available for the public.[17]

A patent may be a utility patent, issued for the invention of a new and useful process, machine or product; a design patent, for a new and original design to be used in the manufacturing of a product; or a plant patent, for a new and distinct, invented or discovered type of plant.[18] Subject matter that is unpatentable in India includes an invention that is immoral, an invention which claims anything contrary to natural laws (e.g. gravity), the discovery of anything occurring in nature, and the formulation of an abstract theory.[19] That being said, a patentable invention generally must be able to result in a useful, concrete and tangible result, although restrictions of what is not patentable may vary country to country.

Patents are valid for a limited period of time; generally 20 years from the start of the term. A patent’s exclusivity is also limited to the country in which it was granted, meaning that a patent holder may not be able to exclude others from the making, using, or selling of a similar invention in a different jurisdiction that would otherwise infringe upon the their IP right.[20]

Effects on Innovation

There are vast perspectives around the adoption and application of patents, ranging from a strong opposition—by those in favour of free and widespread access to products of innovation and knowledge processes (e.g. medicines and educational materials)—to those in strong support of a more restrictive intellectual property (IP) regime, as a means of protecting the inventor and his or her inventions.

One of the underlying principles for the consideration and enforcement of a patent regime is the claim that this form of IPR serves as an incentive for innovation to take place. By offering a “reward” in the form of statutory recognition, protection, and remuneration, the granting of a patent may encourage innovation. An opposing viewpoint to such a claim, however, may argue that patents do not encourage innovation, but stifle it, by preventing others from being able to innovate through their enforcement. Just as well, a patent is granted after the fact, and the odds of one’s application being approved are quite slim—not to mention expensive!—so a patent would not be an ideal form of incentive, with remuneration only taking place when one’s patent is infringed or one’s monopoly abused.

One’s monopoly may be abused when the right holder of a patent (or thousands!) brings an industry to a standstill by shutting out others from having their new inventions reach the market. Often, patents may prevent the manufacturing and selling of innovations that are not actually relevant, but claim by the right holder to fall within the scope of the patented invention.

The effects of the excessive granting and enforcement of patents may trickle down to the level of the individual when the economic threshold for starting a new business increases, one’s business’s profitability reduces due to the payments of royalties and legal expenses, and the potential for such an entrepreneur to scale beyond national boundaries is undermined.[21]

Case Study: Pervasive Technologies
Because of these limitations placed onto others by patent holders, small-to-medium business and enterprises in India and China tend to ignore existing IPR for inventions they may use within their manufactured products due to the high costs associated to seeking permission and paying royalties to the right holder. For this reason, these businesses may only begin to develop protection and risk-mitigation strategies when they have scaled up and can afford to do so.[22] A phenomenon that has risen out of a restrictive market and resulting repeated efforts to get around such restrictions is the “gray” market, where mobile phone are being manufactured with the likelihood of infringing upon a number of existing patents for inventions used in the manufactures. Mobile phones that are entirely legal may cost well over INR 8000/- (US $120) when gray market devices generally range from INR 3000/- to INR 4000/- (US $48-60), demonstrating the high price of patents on the availability of hardware.[23] The term, pervasive devices, coined by the Centre for Internet & Society, largely refers to sub-$100 communication devices that are becoming near-ubiquitous as a result of their increased availability to reach larger demographics of lesser income brackets. Software Technologies Although software technologies are predominantly protected under Indian copyright law, in countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, software is patentable. Unlike American companies, such as IBM which has applied for 5,896 US patents, very seldom do Indian companies apply for software patents, and instead are likely to become at risk for litigation in attempts to penetrate markets elsewhere due to the patents already existing. Most commonly, software producers from India do not own the rights to the IP they have created and instead adopt a “software as a service” (SAAS) business model, within which contracts signed require all IP developed to be signed over to the client. As international players continue to register a multitude of software patents, it becomes increasingly difficult for Indian companies to move away from this SAAS model to developing their own proprietary products due to the increased risk of litigation.[24]

Pre-Grant and Post Grant

Upon signing the Trade Related Aspects Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, India introduced two kinds of patent oppositions, where an individual may write to the Indian Patent Office to oppose the granting of a patent. The first kind, pre-grant opposition, may occur after the patent application has been published by the Patent Office, but has not yet been granted, for the primary purpose of challenging the application’s validity before a patent is granted. One may also give notice of opposition to the Patent Office after the granting of a patent, under post-grant opposition, so long as it occurs within a year of the granted patent’s publication.[25]

Compulsory Licensing

In March 2012, the Government of India granted its first compulsory license ever to Indian generic drug manufacturer, Natco Pharma Ltd. to allow for the manufacturing of Sorateni tosylate, a treatment for advanced kidney and liver cancer. Patent Holder and German pharmaceutical giant, Bayer Corporation, had not been making the drug adequately accessible to the people of India on a commercial scale, and had not imported the drug at all in 2008, and barely in 2009 and 2010. As a result, Natso Pharma Ltd. applied for a compulsory license.

Once granted, Natco was to pay a reduced royalty fee to Bayer quarterly, was required to provide the drug for free to at least 600 needy and deserving patients per year, to sell the drug for a set fee, as specified by the Indian government.

Pharmaceuticals have been an area of fierce debate as drugs for treating serious illnesses, such as malaria, HIV and AIDS, are widely available in the West, and generally too expensive for developing countries due to being protected by patents, where outbreaks are more likely to occur. India’s first compulsory license had been a landmark decision for India, as it is an exemplary case which demonstrates the possibility of a “new” drug under patent to be produced by generic makers at a fraction of the price, compensating the patent holder through royalty payments, while at the same time, enabling access to individuals that would not have otherwise been able to receive this form of treatment.

In the scenario where a government feels a patent holder is abusing one’s monopoly over their patented invention by excessively limiting others to access—and when it could otherwise substantially benefit the public good—a government may grant special privilege to another to use or manufacture such a patented product without the consent of its owner. This is called a compulsory license, and does not take the rights away from the patent holder, but limits them, as to enable increased access. A license fee or royalty payment is still to be paid to the patent holder; however this rate may be negotiated by the government, contrary to a statutory license, where this rate is fixed by the law.

Copyright

Copyright refers to the protection granted, in law, to the expression of some ideas. It is to be noted that the idea itself is not protectable. For instance, if I were to tell you about an ‘idea’ that I had about writing a story about a cat and a mouse, and, a few days later, you wrote a story about a cat and a mouse, the copyright of that story would vest with you, despite the fact that the ‘idea’ for the story was mine. This concept is called the idea-expression dichotomy.

The ‘expression’ that is eligible for protection could be in various forms, including literary, artistic or dramatic works.

Components of Copyright

Copyright recognises the concepts of ownership and authorship of work, and the fact that these might vary in specific instances, when various persons could be involved in the creation of a work. Some may have provided creative input (the author of the book or the director/screen play writer/story writer of the movie), and some may have provided monetary input (the publisher of the book/producer of the movie).

The moral right of ‘attribution’, that is, the right to be recognised for the work vests with the authors. Economic rights associated with copyright vest in the owner of the copyright. The owner could be different from the author. For instance, in case of the book, the owner of the copyright could be the publisher, and in the case of the movie, it could be the producer. In some instances, copyright may be jointly owned as well. Copyright vests in the owner of copyright. It grants the owner the right to exclude all others from making use of/exploiting the work in question commercially. This would essentially prevent others from adapting, copying, distributing, or making any other use of the protected work, unless authorised by the owner.

Copyright and the Law

Copyright law is territorial in nature, that is, copyright granted by law in one nation state is only enforceable in the said that grants the right. One aspect of territoriality could be the term of copyright. Generally, the term is the lifetime of the author (creator/owner) (plus) fifty to hundred years from the death of the author. Anonymous works, or works owned by corporations have a fixed term of copyright, usually between fifty and hundred years. The exception to this general rule of territoriality is if the state in question has entered into any international agreement to the contrary.

Other aspects of copyright regulated by law include subject matter of protection, requirements of registration, term of protection and associated rights. Internationally, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 1886 is the key instrument. Additionally, some other important international instruments include the WIPO Copyright Treaty, 1996 and the WIPO Performers and Phonograms Treaty, 1996.

While the general rule is that all copying and distribution of the copyrighted work has to be done with the express permission of the copyright holder, some exceptional circumstances allow for this requirement to be dispensed with. These are known as fair use/fair dealing (depending on the jurisdiction).

Case Study: The Oxbridge Textbooks[26]
The Broad Issue: The issue of copyrights when it comes to academic purposes has always been one that has sparked debates and very compelling arguments on both sides. While research that is published in scientific journals is carried out with the pure intent of spreading knowledge that will ultimately lead to broader scientific inquiry and research, in the past few decades it has transformed into a product of “ruthless capitalism” whose profit margins are far too high. The question then arises that how research that is carried out mostly with government funded public money be made available to the general public across the world at reasonable and affordable rates? Don’t students in the developing world have equal rights to access a level of education and research that would enable them to compete with their affluent counterparts? But this issue isn't just a cause for concern in the developing world as one of the world’s richest schools,Harvard University released a memorandum in mid-2012 that the cost of its journal subscriptions has become prohibitively expensive. This forces us to take a moment and think about the world of academic publishing, the accessibility of knowledge, and the flow of information when the richest academic institution on the planet cannot afford to continue paying for its journal subscriptions? According to Thomes and Clay’s report, commercial publishers within the last twenty to thirty years have taken control over many publications that had been controlled by non-profit academic and scholarly societies. The shift took place during the 1960’s and 1970’s as commercial publishers recognized the potential for profitability in acquiring journals from the societies. This has resulted in publishing houses now commanding hefty profit margins up to 40%. The Broad Solution: The Indian Copyright Act, Section 52, provides for a wide educational fair use exception for academic purposes. Yet the publishing houses, demand for the purchasing of a Blanket License under the IRRO (Indian Reprographic Reproduction Organization)[27] which costs Rs 24,000 per annum for 20 copies of a single publication and not more than 10% of each copy being photographed. This clause can be challenged on the grounds of “fair use exception” under Section 52. The cancellation of these licenses is a fair demand as the risks of purchasing the license and complying to the publishing houses norms have many repercussions. Due to the business model of the publishing industry, a steep increase in prices has been seen for the past decade, the Harvard letter being just the tip of the iceberg. In 2012, over 12,000 researchers have signed a statement promising to boycott any publication published by Elsevier (a publication house accused of pocketing 40% of the profits). The increase in the prices of academic works in the international market has a steep impact on the budget of children who attend public universities such as Delhi University where the annual fees is Rs. 5000 per annum. Specific Issue at Hand: The specific issue here is a lawsuit filed by the Cambridge and Oxford publication press against Delhi University and a small photocopy shop for copyright infringement. The store, who they accuse of creating photocopied “course packs” in agreement with the University that include content from their textbooks, is selling these bundles for much cheaper than the original books. The presses are demanding more than US$110,000 in damages. On one hand we have powerful international publishing houses and on the other students who do not have access to study material from these houses due to their impoverished backgrounds. It is unlikely that the publishing houses’ revenues would increase post this suit, as most students cannot afford to purchase the study material unless the university foots the bill. It is also important to note that a previous lawsuit that Cambridge publication house lost was due to the defendant using only 10% of the book. In this case we have: Average percentage of entire book copied = 8.81 %. The breakup of the amount of material used per book can be found here.[28] Out of the 23 books in question, only 5 extracts exceed the 10% threshold(these have been marked in red in the document). To suggest that the photocopy shop and Delhi University should have to shell out Rs. 60,00,000 in damages for this case, is a case of publishing houses flexing their muscle power over students in the developing world who deserve equal access to academic material.

[1]. Peter Dravos

[2]. Ibid

[3]. Ibid

[4]. Ibid

[5]. For more on intellectual property see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intellectual-property/

[6]. Supra note above.

[7]. For more see Darryl J. Murphy “Are Intellectual Property rights compatible with Rawlsian principles of justice?, Springer, available at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10676-012-9288-8

[8]. For more see Ashish Rajadhyaksha, “The Last Cultural Mile”, Centre for Internet and Society, available at http://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/last-cultural-mile.pdf, last accessed on February 1, 2014.

[9]. See citation above.

[10]. Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz, Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader, published by CIS and Institute of Network Cultures, available at http://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/%237reader_Wikipedia.pdf

[11]. The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) team from CIS has held several workshops and produced more than 50 blog entries in nearly 10 months.

[12]. See Pranesh Prakash, Nishant Shah, Sunil Abraham and Glover Wright, “Open Government Data Study: India” published by Transparency & Accountability Initiative, available at http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/publications/open-government.pdf

[13]. A term coined by the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal in the context of theatre. This formulation of spect-actor is very useful in reimagining the citizen in the digital era that has created preconditions for the citizen to effectively participate in governance. For more on Spect-actor see Augusto, Boal (1993). Theater of the Oppressed. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

[14]. For more see Article 27 available at http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a27, last accessed on January 31, 2014.

[15]. Read the full Covenant at https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20999/volume-999-I-14668-English.pdf

[16]. Stephan Kinsella, “Against Intellectual Property”, Journal of Libertarian Studies 15, no. 2 (Spring 2001), available at http://www.stephankinsella.com/publications/against-intellectual-property/, last accessed on February 1, 2014.

[17]. See “Inventing the Funture: An Introduction to Patents for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, World Intellectual Property Organization”, available at http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/sme/917/wipo_pub_917.pdf , last accessed on January 31, 2014.

[18]. See “Types of Patents”, available at http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/patdesc.htm , last accessed on January 31 , 2014

[19]. See “Inventions not Patentable in India”, available at http://www.cazri.res.in/itmu/pdf/Inventions%20not%20Patentable%20in%20India.pdf, last accessed on January 31, 2014.

[20]. Supra note 62 above.

[21]. See Research Proposal on Pervasive Technologies available at http://cis-india.org/a2k/pervasive-technologies-research-proposal.pdf , last accessed on January 31, 2014.

[22]. Ibid.

[23]. Ibid.

[24]. Ibid.

[25]. See Tech Corp Legal http://bit.ly/NBRg1F

[26]. Ariel Bogle, Cambridge & Oxford University Press sue Delhi University for copyright infringement — over course packs, March 18, 2013, Melville House, available at http://www.mhpbooks.com/cambridge-university-press-oxford-university-press-sue-delhi-university-for-copyright-infringement-over-course-packs/,last accessed on January 29, 2014.

[27]. http://www.irro.in/about.php

[28]. Book-wise Percentage Analysis (DU Photocopying Case), available at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnUBa-WkvhlOdDItVENnYkpZZ1ZYYTYwRGVycXVtZ1E#gid=0, last accessed on January 29, 2014.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/access-2-knowledge