Centre for Internet and Society

El idioma oriya ama a Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T05:14:26Z

Este post es de Rising Voices, un proyecto de Global Voices que ayuda a difundir los medios ciudadanos en lugares que normalmente no tienen acceso a ellos.

The following is a Spanish version of the news that was already published in English on Rising Voices. The Russian version can be read here.

El oriya (odia) es una lengua con una antigüedad de 2,500 años nativa de la región de Odisha (antes conocida como Orissa). La lengua obtuvo recientemente el estatus de lengua clásica de la India.

Recientemente, la comunidad Wikimedia Oriya se reunió para celebrar el nuevo estatus de la lengua en Bhubaneswar.

A continuación un extracto de un artículo [en] reciente en el blog de la Fundación Wikimedia, por Subhashish Panigrahi [en], compartiendo información sobre la comunidad Wiki en Oriya:

14 libros con derechos de autor se han relicenciado bajo la licencia Creative Commons y el proyecto de digitalización en Odia WikiSource [or] fue formalmente iniciado por una institución educacional indígena, la Institución Kalinga de Ciencias Sociales (KISS por sus siglas en inglés) [...] La KISS digitalizará algunos de estos libros y los pondrá a disposición en Odia Wikisource.

Una fuente OpenType Unicode en oriya, “Odia OT Jagannatha [en]” diseñada por Sujata Patel de Odialanguage.com [en] fue publicada bajo la licencia OFL. Es la primera fuente OpenType para oriya que la comunidad ha probado activamente.

Una nueva herramienta para la escritura en oriya sin necesidad de estar en línea llamada “TypeOdia” [en], por el wikipedista Manoj Sahukar [or] también se publicó para su distribución. DVD's con la fuente, la herramienta de escritura, diccionarios en la lengua oriya, la Wikipedia oriya fuera de línea en Kiwix, la guía de edición de Wikipedia [en], un convertidor de fuentes ISCII a Unicode, varias paquetes de software libre y de fuente abierta y el sistema operativo Ubuntu [...]

Una gran mayoría de las publicaciones en oriya no se encuentran en Internet y los usuarios carecen de fácil acceso. (El dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak) discutió el proceso de digitalización para preservar libros valiosos que ya no se imprimen y viejos manuscritos en hoja de palma [...]

Las fuentes en oriya pueden ser descargadas gratuitamente [en]. Los desarroladores de la fuente dicen [en]:

Abogamos por el uso de la lengua oriya de verdadero espíritu, en el campo de la administración diaria, en la justicia, además del campo de la educación. Además, hemos tomado el proyecto para desarrollar un léxico en oriyia, incluyendo versiones en oriya típicas de palabras técnicas, para evitar la dependencia de la lengua inglesa.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/rising-voices-april-12-2014-el-idioma-oriya-ama-a-wikipedia

Eight Challenges That Indian-Language Wikipedias Need to Overcome

subha — 2016-03-29T17:05:36Z

Even after a decade of existence, Indian language Wikipedias are not yet known to many Indian language speakers. Wikipedia, being the largest available encyclopedia made in the human history, it what it is today because of the hundreds and thousands of volunteer-editors. But while native-language Wikipedias are becoming game-changers in other corners of the world, the scenario in India is skewed. In my experience, here are a number of challenges that Indian-language Wikipedias are currently facing.

The article was published in the Wire on March 17, 2016. A version of the article was also mirrored by Opensource.com on March 28, 2016.

1. Language communities:

The language communities of many of the Indian languages are such that many of them do not know how to search for information online, in their language typed in their script. Some of these communities even believe that because Google’s home page does not have their script, their language does not exist on the Internet. Starting with five Indian languages as the language of its interface, Google now has has nine Indian languages. But this does not stop a Santali or Manipuri user to search in Unicode Ol chiki (script for Santali) or in Unicode Meithei (script for Manipuri). Google or any search engine for that matter will display anything available in any script on the Internet. But the lack of this very thing is keeping many people away from being connected to the Internet in general and Wikipedia in particular.\

2. Wikipedia’s editor community:

Wikipedia is written by people like you and me. And from writing to editing everything happens voluntarily. As many people do not probably know, or do not try to learn, anybody can correct the mistakes and inaccuracies that exist in many Wikipedia articles. The Wikipedia editor communities for several Indian languages are really small. While these languages are spoken by millions of people, only a handful editors contribute in editing the Wikipedia in these languages. In January this year, the Hindi Wikipedia, for instance, had only 89 editors while the total number of Hindi speakers would be over 550 million.

3. Language input in computers:

A vast majority of people in this country do not know how to type in their own language.. There is also little documentation for users to learn about language input. Even though many government-run schools in India are seeing a proliferation of more computers and Internet access, native language input and several other essential training of basic computing are not widely taught in schools in all states. What is sad is that there is a wide variety of free software for native-language input and the challenges of typing in Indian languages that existed a few years back has almost gone.

4. Language input in mobile devices:

With over 1 billion people with mobile phones, the 15% internet penetration rate will soon grow at a faster pace. This in turn — and also tough competition that compel TSPs to drop data charges — will help many Indians get access to the Internet . If these people are not educated about native language input then they will be victims of the English-centric Internet rather than being able to enjoy the virtue of the same. Many Indians that have smartphones need full Indian language support and especially inbuilt input methods to be able to contribute in their own language Wikipedia.

5. Low availability of Indian-language content on the Internet:

Lack of native language content on the Internet is another major factor in the low adoption of Indian language Wikpedias. As per an Internet and Mobile Association of India survey conducted in 2012, over 6% of the population is left behind from joining the online sphere simply because of lack of content in their languages. Take, for instance, my state odisha.While the Kerala government’s official tourism portal is available in Odia and other Indian languages, the Odisha government’s tourism portal itself has no information in Odia-language today. Our languages are neglected largely in our own states.

6. Mismatch of conventional and new media:

Many conventional media houses still continue to use non-standard variants of the ASCII/ISCII script encoding systems, instead of adopting the Unicode standard. Unicode being a global standard, and having the advantage of unifying the world, has been available for Indian languages for almost 25 years now. But much of our vernacular print media has failed to adopt this. Consequently, many popular Indian-language newspapers are yet to become available in Unicode on the open Internet.

7. Lack of Open Access:

Majority of the information produced on the Internet in general and by the government, in particular, are mostly copyrighted. The paywalled garden of copyright restrictions keeps the information closed and stop people from sharing and learning more. On the contrary, Wikipedia is available under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license which allows anyone to make use of the content and even distribute commercial copies of its content. The idea of opening up information for masses in a free license could make information reach millions of people.

8. People with disabilities:

Many people cannot read, speak and write. India has over 60 million people with some form of hearing impairment. There is a desperate need for a high-quality text-to-speech and speech-to-text engine for people with physical disabilities. Also, these software products have to be free software so that common people, that cannot afford to buy expensive proprietary software like JAWS, can contribute to Wikipedia in their language. Many text-to-speech engines that are available today for Indian languages sound so mechanical that it is difficult for common speakers to use them.

Subhashish Panigrahi is an educator and free knowledge evangelist, and currently works for Communications, Program Capacity & Learning at Wikimedia Foundation, and Access to Knowledge at the Centre for Internet and Society. Portions of this article came from a speech that Panigrahi gave at BHASHA: Indian Languages Digital Festival in New Delhi.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-wire-march-17-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-eight-challenges-that-indian-language-wikipedias-need-to-overcome

Eight Challenges Indian-Language Wikipedias Need to Overcome

subha — 2016-06-18T17:09:38Z

Even after a decade of existence, Indian language Wikipedias are not yet known to many Indian language speakers. Wikipedia, the largest available encyclopedia made in the human history, is what it is today because of the hundreds and thousands of volunteer editors.

The article was published in Global Voices on April 27, 2016. A version of this post was previously published on The Wire.

But while native-language Wikipedias are becoming game-changers in other corners of the world, the scenario in India is skewed. Here, from my point of view, are some of the challenges that Indian-language Wikipedias are currently facing.

1. Language communities

The language communities of many of the Indian languages are such that many of them do not know how to search for information online, in language typed in their script. Some of these communities even believe that because Google’s home page does not display their script, their language does not exist on the Internet. Google, which starting with five Indian languages as options in its interface, now has has nine Indian languages. But this does not stop a Santali or Manipuri user from searching in Unicode Ol chiki (the script for Santali) or in Unicode Meithei (the script for Manipuri). Google, or any search engine, for that matter, will display anything available in any script on the Internet. But the perceived lack of this very function is keeping many people from connecting to the Internet, and to Wikipedia in particular.

2. Wikipedia’s editor community

Wikipedia is written by people like you and me. And everything, from writing to editing, is done by volunteers. And anybody can correct the mistakes and inaccuracies that exist in many Wikipedia articles. While several Indian languages are spoken by millions of people, the Wikipedia editor communities for these languages are very small, with only a handful editors contributing to editing those language versions of Wikipedia. In January this year, Hindi Wikipedia, for instance, had only 89 editors, while the total number of Hindi speakers is over 550 million.

3. Language input on computers

A vast majority of people in India do not know how to type in their own language. There is also little documentation instructing users about language input. Even though many government-run schools in India are seeing a proliferation in computer use and Internet access, native language input and other essential training of basic computing are not widely taught in schools in all states. This is unfortunate, as there is a wide variety of free software for native-language input, and the challenges of typing in Indian languages that existed a few years back are now almost non-existent.

4. Language input on mobile devices

With over 1 billion mobile phone users, India's 15% internet penetration rate will soon start growing at a faster pace. This in turn—along with the tough competition that will compel TSPs to lower data charges—will help many Indians get access to the Internet. If these people are not educated about native language input they will be victims of the English-centric Internet and fail to enjoy the virtues of the former. Many Indians who have smartphones need full Indian language support, and especially built-in input methods, to be able to contribute to Wikipedia in their own languages.

5. Scarcity of Indian-language content on the Internet

The relative lack of native language content on the Internet is another major factor in the low adoption of Indian language Wikpedias. According to an Internet and Mobile Association of India survey conducted in 2012, over 6% of the population is left behind with regard to joining the online sphere simply because of a scarcity of content in their languages. Take my home state of Odisha, for instance: while the Kerala state government’s official tourism portal is available in Odia and other Indian languages, at the time of writing the Odisha government’s tourism portal had no information in Odia. It is unfortunate that our languages are neglected largely within our own states.

6. Incompatibility between new and traditional media standards

Instead of adopting the Unicode standard, many traditional media outlets continue to use non-standard variants of the ASCII/ISCII script encoding systems Unicode, a global standard, has been available for Indian languages for almost 25 years now, but most of India's vernacular print media has failed to adopt it. As a result, many popular Indian-language newspapers are unavailable in Unicode on the open Internet.

7. Lack of Open Access

The majority of the information published on the Internet, and by the Indian government, in particular, is copyrighted. This paywalled garden of copyright restrictions restricts access of this information and prevents people from sharing and learning more. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is distributed under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license that allows anyone to make use of the content, and even distribute it commercially. Opening up information for the masses under free license regime could make it easily accessible to millions of people.

8. Failure to cater for people with disabilities

Many people in India cannot read, speak or write, and the country has over 60 million people with some form of hearing impairment. There is a desperate need for a high-quality text-to-speech and speech-to-text engines for people with physical disabilities. These products also be freely available so that those who cannot afford to buy expensive proprietary software like JAWS can contribute to Wikipedia in their languages. Many of the text-to-speech engines available today for Indian languages sound so mechanical that it is difficult for the average speaker to use them.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/global-voices-april-27-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-eight-challenges-indian-language-wikipedias-need-to-overcome

Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia

Nitika Tandon — 2012-09-29T12:13:04Z

Nitika Tandon tells us about the Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telegu Wikipedia, how it will run, its necessity and the future steps.

What is Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia?

Editor Growth & Contribution Program is an online outreach program that will help raise the number of active editors on Telugu Wikipedia. The program will provide an entrance point for newcomers to Wikipedia, enabling them to contribute to its contents and share the knowledge they possess, while participating and communicating with existing Wikipedia community members. Such a program will serve as a compliment to off-wiki outreach activities already underway.

Some of the Telugu Wikipedians like Arjuna, Dr. Rajshekhar, Sujatha are in the initial stage of discussing the possibility and ways of running an Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia.

How will the program run?

The idea is to run outreach banners using the local site notice on Telugu Wikipedia for three consecutive months. These banners will be in the form of short bios/stories of Telugu Wikipedians who agree to be featured in the editor campaign. Most Wikipedia visitors are unaware of the fact that regular folks write articles on Wikipedia and not scholars or paid writers. These personal stories from active Wikipedians could feature their motivation to contribute, their passion for building and developing Wikipedia, their early experience with Wikipedia as an editor, their invitation to site visitors to become Wikipedia editors, etc. Such personal stories will add a human touch to Wikipedia and will help new visitors related to real life stories.

Each of these banners will link to a landing page. The landing page will start with a question at its top saying “What would you like to do in Wikipedia?” followed by six buttons each listing an answer to this question, and linking to the corresponding tutorial page. These six buttons will be: create your username, create your userpage, edit an existing article (fix a typo), add a reference, create a new article, and send a message.

Landing page will be designed in a simple way to avoid any visual distraction for the visitor. Each button will provide a detailed graphical explanation on how to perform each of those actions. To understand the workings of the program in greater detail please click here (this program design is just a rough draft and may change as required).

Why Telugu Wikipedia?

As per Wikimedia Stats Telugu speaking population is around 8 crore. Telugu Wikipedia has about 18 lakh page views per month and 21 active editors (5+ edits in a month). In a community with such large numbers of speakers but extremely low number of Wikipedia editors, there seems to be a lot of scope and opportunity to increase Wikipedia's reach and awareness amongst Telugu speaking population and more so amongst reader of Telugu Wikipedia to start improving and expanding Wikipedia articles and foster the growth of Telugu Wikipedia community.

Telugu Wikipedia at a glance July 2012

Number of speakers of other Dravidian languages like Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil is relatively low but have higher number of page views and active editors as compared to Telugu as seen in the table on the right. KA, ML and TA Wikipedia communities have run different programs over time to increase it's reach, spread more awareness and invite new editors. Some of these programs were TamilWiki Media Contest, Tamil Wikipedia Contribution Campaign, Malayalam Wikipedia Education Program, Kannada Medical Project, etc. Telugu Wikipedia requires a similar high impact project that can help them grow their community.

Comparison of Telugu Wikipedia with other langauge Wikipedias.

Cross pollinating ideas

Tamil and Arabic Wikipedia communities have already experimented with Editor Growth & Contribution Program and have produced amazing results. Ravi from Tamil Wikipedia and Haitham from Arabic Wikipedia were actively involved in running the contribution programs on their respective language Wikipedias and have offered help to run similar project on Telugu Wikipedia and provide regular guidance and support.

Next steps ahead

Strong community support will be required to run such a program. The larger Telugu Wikipedia community will plan a meet up sometime in October in Hyderabad to take this program forward. Special thanks to Dr. Rajshekhar who has offered to organise this meet-up.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/editor-growth-and-contribution-on-telegu-wikipedia

Edit-a-thon to improve Kannada-language science-related Wikipedia articles

pavanaja — 2015-09-04T08:25:51Z

A three-day Kannada Wikipedia edit-a-thon was conducted for science lecturers of institutions who gathered at the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET), Bengaluru this August 18. The idea of this event was to improve science-related articles that are part of the Government of Karnataka's high school syllabus.

During the span of three days the lecturers were taught about basics of Kannada Wikipedia, editing policies, Kannada input, creating and editing articles on Kannada Wikipedia, and they all participated in contributing to about 20 articles science-related article based on topics listed in the high school syllabus (as per the Karnataka state syllabus). Some of the lecturers who were first-timers faced problems with Kannada typing where most others took some time to understand the Wikipedia markup and citations. As this was the first iteration of the project, two more edit-a-thons will follow; one in November 2015 and another one in February 2016. We invite all Kannada Wikimedians to join and mentor these new Wikimedians.

Images of the edit-a-thon can be found on Wikimedia Commons Category “Kannada Wikipedia Workshop for DSERT Bengaluru Aug 18-20 2015”. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Tito Dutta from CIS-A2K conducted the workshop.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/edit-a-thon-to-improve-kannada-language-science-related-wikipedia-articles-1

Edit-a-thon at DSERT Bengaluru to improve Science-related articles in Kannada Wikipedia

Ananth Subray — 2016-08-16T08:31:50Z

We have been working with the Department of State Educational Research and Training of Karnataka (DSERT), a Government of Karnataka-run research and training institution headquartered in Bengaluru. With the hope of expanding the reach of Science-related content in Kannada Wikipedia, we organised an edit-a-thon spanning over three days from the 11th January through the 13th.

This edit-a-thon was part of many ongoing outreach programmes at DSERT and had engagement with faculty members from several schools and colleges in Karnataka, and help them contribute to the Science-related articles in Kannada Wikipedia. The edit-a-thon was organised by the Centre for Internet and Society’s Access to Knowledge programme and 12 educators participated in the programme. In total, 53 articles were created/improved during these three days. With six female educator-editors actively participating in this event, there was a fair balance in the gender demography. More details about the event can be read in the event page here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/edit-a-thon-at-dsert-bengaluru-to-improve-science-related-articles-in-kannada-wikipedia

Edit-a-thon

praskrishna — 2014-04-07T01:21:51Z

CIS-A2K team is organizing a edit-a-thon at Goa Central Library, Panjim on March 8, 2014.

This edit-a-thon will focus on creating and improving Konkani Wikipedia articles in all scripts.
Help increase web presence of Konkani language and culture!
We look forward to seeing you there!

The event is designed for two main purposes:

Help newcomers learn about Konkani Wikipedia
Give established Konkani Wikipedians a chance to work together and showcase their language on the Internet

What?: A one-day event for everyone to come together to edit and create Konkani Wikipedia pages. Help increase web presence of Konkani language and culture! You could write about Konkani language, writers, folklore or Goan culture, history, food or anything that interests you.

Wikipedia provides enough and more space for ALL scripts - so feel free to write in which ever script you're most comfortable with. We'll have:

Article creation sprint - Create new articles on Konkani Wikipedia
Wikipedia Training - Training session to become a Wikipedia content contributor
Wikipedia Games & Quiz - Participate in Wikipedia games and quiz and win Wikipedia swags
A lot of FUN!!

Europeana Fashion Editathon at Utrecht

Who?: Anyone who can or wants to contribute to Konkani Wikipedia. Join us if you want to showcase your language on a global platform. We will have people on hand to help you with Wikipedia editing and technical aspects.

Where?: Goa Central Library, Panjim

When?: Saturday, March 8, 2014, from 10 am to 5pm. (Drop in at any time, for as long as you want. Lunch provided!)

Art & feminism Wikipedia edit-a-thon

What to bring?

a laptop (but we'll have some if you don't)
ideas for articles, and supporting references for the article content
any digital photos you've taken that you would like to use on Wikipedia.
a friend or two! Bring along other people -- it's more fun and more productive too.

Questions?: Contact Nitika at nitika[at]cis-india[dot]org

Schedule

10:00 am to 10:15 am - Wikipedia Energisers & Introductions
10:15 am to 10:30 am - Discussing ideas, suggestions and goals for a productive day
10:30 am to 1:00 pm - Wikipedia page editing
1:00 pm to 2:00 pm - Lunch
2:00 pm to 3:00 pm - Wikipedia Energisers, games & quiz
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm - Wikipedia page editing
4:00 pm to 5:00 pm - Wrap-up/Review the day’s progress

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/edit-a-thon

Dr. Pavanaja Featured in Vijayavani

praskrishna — 2015-12-15T07:49:55Z

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was invited to the office of Vijayavani, Kannada daily. Vijayavani runs a programme in which a celebrity will be invited to their office and have informal discussions with them. Later a lead article based on that discussions will be generated. The article which featured Dr. Pavanaja was published on November 16, 2015.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/dr-pavanaja-featured-in-vijayavani

Dot Bharat domain to roll out on August 21

praskrishna — 2014-09-08T07:08:32Z

Web addresses are set to get multilingual in India. Soon you will be able to type in addresses in a web browser in the Devnagri script – with “dot bharat” standing in for the currently common “dot in” domain to begin with. The roll-out of the same begins on August 21.

This was originally published by IANS and mirrored in Firstpost on August 19, 2014. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

In the 90-day “sunrise period” of the roll-out those with registered trademarks will be able to register domain names in languages that use the Devnagri script, such as Hindi, Marathi, Boro, Dogri etc. After the sunrise period, it will be thrown open to regular users of the internet.

The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), an autonomous non-profit organisation, is responsible for peering of ISPs and routing the domestic traffic within the country. The NIXI and the government’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) have worked on enabling this country code top level domain (ccTLD) of dot bharat. They say more such domains in different scripts and languages will eventually follow.

Currently, one can find content in various languages online. However, the URLs or web addresses are in English. With this rollout, even URLs would be in Hindi or Marathi. “Once the sunrise period runs smoothly, we will introduce other languages in other scripts such as Bengali, Punjabi, Kannada, Telugu etc. There is no timeline set for it yet, but we hope there will be enough pressure with the adoption of the Devnagri domains to implement it soon,” says Mahesh Kulkarni, program coordinator at the C-DAC, heading the language technology group.

A few government websites too will be a part of the launch next week by the union minister of communications and information technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad. “For example, the pmindia dot gov dot in will be pradhanmantri dot sarkar dot bharat,” says Dr Govind, CEO of NIXI.

While some quarters have welcomed the introduction of the new domain, others are doubtful of its success given the low internet penetration and low literacy rate in the country. A June 2014 report from research firm eMarketer, India had the third largest online user-base globally after China and the US but had the lowest internet penetration growth in Asia Pacific at 17.4%. Osama Manzar, who heads the Digital Empowerment Foundation, suggests getting more people and public institutions online rolling out local language domain names.

“This is not a bad move, but I doubt and wonder if it will encourage people to buy domain names in Indian languages. Is it in sync with the national digital infrastructure? It is important that the government encourage every department and village panchayat to get online with a website along with this,” says Manzar.

Sahitya Akademi-winning Hindi writer Uday Prakash finds the Devnagri domain a welcome move, but stresses on the importance of making quality content in regional languages available online. “It’s a good step and will help those who are not comfortable with English. However, the problem remains that most of the content online is in English. If I search for Robin Williams in English, I will find hundreds of webpages. But if I google the same name in Devnagri, I’ll hardly find anything,” says Prakash.

On the other hand, there is also the view that the move towards a multilingual web need not follow a set path. “If a poor person buys a mobile phone before he build a toilet, who are we to judge? It is a market phenomenon. Like a jigsaw, some pieces of the puzzle may be worked out in advance. There are things like Indic input keyboards, text to speech and speech to text that need to be in place before an Indic language speaker can have the same experience as an English language user of the internet,” says Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bangalore-based research organization Center for Internet and Society.

In October 2013, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) delegated generic top level domains in Arabic, Chinese and Cyrillic scripts. This was under the Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) fast track process of the ICANN, which began in 2009, inviting requests from countries for territory names in scripts other than Latin. Meanwhile domestically, the union government has made a push for the use of local languages.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/tech-first-post-dot-bharat-domain-to-roll-out-on-august-21

Don't Shoot the Messenger: Speech on Intermediary Liability at 22nd SCCR of WIPO

pranesh — 2012-06-01T15:01:08Z

This is a speech made by Pranesh Prakash at an side-event co-organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Internet Society on intermediary liability, to coincide with the release of Prof. Lillian Edwards's WIPO-commissioned report on 'Role and Responsibility of the Internet Intermediaries in the Field of Copyright'.

Good afternoon. I've been asked to provide a user's perspective to the question of intermediary liability. "In what cases should an Internet intermediary—a messenger—be held liable for the doings of a third party?" is the broad question. I believe that in answering that question we can be guided by two simple principles: As long as intermediaries don't exercise direct editorial control, they should not be held liable; and as long as they don't instigate or encourage the illegal activity, they should not be held liable. In all other cases, attacking Internet intermediaries generally a sign of 'shooting the messenger'. General intermediary liability and intermediary liability for copyright infringement share a common philosophical foundation, and so I will talk about general intermediary liability first.

While going about holding intermediaries liable, we must remember that what is at stake here is the fact that intermediaries are a necessary component of ensuring freedom of speech and self-expression on the World Wide Web. In this regard, we must keep in mind the joint declaration issued by four freedom of expression rapporteurs under the aegis of the Organization of American States on June 1, 2011:

Intermediary Liability

a. No one who simply provides technical Internet services such as providing access, or searching for, or transmission or caching of information, should be liable for content generated by others, which is disseminated using those services, as long as they do not specifically intervene in that content or refuse to obey a court order to remove that content, where they have the capacity to do so (‘mere conduit principle’).

b. Consideration should be given to insulating fully other intermediaries, including those mentioned in the preamble, from liability for content generated by others under the same conditions as in paragraph 2(a). At a minimum, intermediaries should not be required to monitor user-generated content and should not be subject to extra-judicial content takedown rules which fail to provide sufficient protection for freedom of expression (which is the case with many of the ‘notice and takedown’ rules currently being applied).

It is useful to keep in mind what the kind of liability we affix on offline intermediaries: Would we hold a library responsible for unlawful material that a user has placed on its shelves without its encouragement?

Ensuring a balanced system of intermediary liability is also very important in preserving the forms of innovations we have seen online. Ensuring that intermediaries aren't always held liable for what third parties do is an essential component of encouraging new models of participation, such as Wikipedia. While Wikipedia has community-set standards with regard to copyright, obscenity, and other such issues, holding the Wikimedia Foundation (which has only around 30-40 people) itself responsible for what millions of users write on Wikipedia will hamper such new models of peer-production. This point, unfortunately, has not prevented the Wikimedia Foundation being sued a great number of times in India, a large percentage of which take the form of SLAPP ('strategic lawsuit against public participation') cases, since if the real intention had been to remove the offending content, editing Wikipedia is an easy enough way of achieving that.

While searching for these balanced solutions, we need to look beyond Europe, and look at how countries like Chile, Brazil, India and others are looking at these issues. Unfortunately, this being Geneva, most of the people I see represented in this room are from the developed world as are the examples we are discussing (France and Spain).

In India, for instance, the Internet Service Providers Association made it clear in 2006 (when there was an outcry over censorship of blogging platforms) that they do not want to be responsible for deciding whether something about which they have received a complaint is unlawful or not.

With respect to copyright and the Internet, while the Internet allows for copyright infringement to be conducted more easily, it also allows for copyright infringement to be spotted more easily. Earlier, if someone copied, it would be difficult to find out. Now that is not so. So, that balance is already ingrained, and while many in the industry focus on the fact of easier infringement and thus ask for increased legal protection, such increase in legal protection is not required since the same technological factors that enable increased infringement also enable increased ability to know about that infringement.

On the Internet, intermediaries sometimes engage in primary infringement due to the very nature of digital technology. In the digital sphere, everything is a copy. Thus, whenever you're working on a computer, copies of the copyrighted that show up on your screen are automatically copied to your computer's RAM. Whenever you download anything from the Internet, copies of it are created en route to your computer. (That is the main reason that exceptions in the copyright laws of most countries that allow you to re-sell a book you own don't apply to electronic books.) In such a case, intermediaries must be specially protected.

Additionally, online activities that we take for granted, for instance search technologies, violate the copyright law of most countries. For online search technology to be reasonably fast (instead of taking hours for each search), the searching has to be done on a copies (cache) of actual websites instead of the actual websites. For image searching, it would be unreasonable to expect search companies to take licences for all the images they allow you to search through. Yet, not doing so might violate the copyright laws of many countries. No one, or so one would think, would argue that search engines should be made illegal, but in some countries copyright law is being used to attack intermediaries.

As noted above, intermediaries are a necessary part of online free speech. Current methods of regulating copyright infringement by users via intermediaries online may well fall afoul of internationally accepted standards of human rights. Frank La Rue, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression in his recent report to the UN Human Rights Council stated:

While blocking and filtering measures deny access to certain content on the Internet, States have also taken measures to cut off access to the Internet entirely.

The Special Rapporteur is deeply concerned by discussions regarding a centralized “on/off” control over Internet traffic. In addition, he is alarmed by proposals to disconnect users from Internet access if they violate intellectual property rights. This also includes legislation based on the concept of “graduated response”, which imposes a series of penalties on copyright infringers that could lead to suspension of Internet service, such as the so-called “three-strikes law” in France and the Digital Economy Act 2010 of the United Kingdom.

Beyond the national level, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been proposed as a multilateral agreement to establish international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement. While the provisions to disconnect individuals from Internet access for violating the treaty have been removed from the final text of December 2010, the Special Rapporteur remains watchful about the treaty’s eventual implications for intermediary liability and the right to freedom of expression.

With respect to graduated response, there is very little that one can add to Prof. Edwards's presentation. I would like to add one further suggestion that Prof. Ed Felten originally put forward as a 'modest proposal': Corporations which make or facilitate three wrongful accusations should face the same penalty as the users who are accused thrice. The recent US strategy of seizing websites even before trial has been sufficiently criticised, so I shall not spend my time on it.

I still have not seen any good evidence as to why for other kinds of primary or secondary liability incurred by online intermediaries the procedure for offline copyright infringement should not apply, since they are usually crafted taking into account principles of natural justice.

The only 'international' and slightly troublesome issue that a resolution is needed to is that of problems relating to different jurisdiction’s laws applying on a single global network. However, this question is much larger one that of copyright and a copyright-specific solution cannot be found. Thus WIPO is not the right forum for the redress of that problem.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/intermediary-liability-wipo-speech

Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution — A One Day Workshop

praskrishna — 2013-11-12T04:20:37Z

On November 14, the CIS-A2K team is organizing a one day orientation workshop on 'Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution' at the Kalinga Institute of Social Studies (KISS), Bhubaneswar from 10.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ରୁ

ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରସ୍ଥିତ ଆଦିବାସୀ ଆବାସିକ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ KISS (କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚୁଟ ଅଫ ସୋସିଆଲ ଷ୍ଟଡିଜ)ଠାରେ ଏଠାକାର ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନେ ଆଦିବାସୀମାନଙ୍କର ଭାଷା, ଚଳଣି ଓ ଜନ‌ଜୀବନ ବାବଦରେ ଅନେକ ଗବେଷଣାଭିତ୍ତିକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ଏକାଧିକ ଭାଷାରେ ଲେଖିବାର ଏକ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରାଯାଇଛି । ପ୍ରାରମ୍ଭିକ ପର୍ଯ୍ୟାୟରେ ଏହି ନ‌ଥିକରଣ ତିନୋଟି ଭାଷାରେ (ଓଡ଼ିଆ, ଇଂରାଜୀ ଓ ହିନ୍ଦୀ)ରେ କରାଯାଇ KISS ୱେବସାଇଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଯିବ । ଏହି ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସମୂହ ଜ୍ଞାନ‌କୋଷ ପରିସରରେ ଥିବାରୁ ଏସବୁକୁ ଉଇକିକରଣ କରି ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସବୁକୁ ସମୃଦ୍ଧ କରିବା ନିମନ୍ତେ ଏହି ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାର ଆୟୋଜନ କରାଯାଇଛି । ନ‌ଭେମ୍ବର ୧୪ (ଗୁରବାର‌) ଦିନ ସକାଳ ୧୧:୦୦ ରେ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠିତ ହେବାକୁ ଥିବା ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାରେ ୧୨ ଜଣ ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ୩୨ ଜଣ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଯୋଗଦେଇ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିବା ଓ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ବାବଦରେ ତାଲିମ ଗ୍ରହଣ କରିବେ ।

Click to read the full details published on the Wiki meta page here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/documentation-and-wikipedia-contribution

Doctors and Translators Are Working Together to Bridge Wikipedia's Medical Language Gap

subha — 2014-08-04T03:29:44Z

I interviewed Wikimedian User:CFCF who is managing the entire project to understand how it is going to work and wrote on Global Voices' Rising Voices about it.

The article was published in GlobalVoices on July 27, 2014. It can be accessed here. It was republished in the Wikimedia Blog on July 30, 2014.

Internet users from around the world often turn to Wikipedia to answer questions of all kinds. The information offered there includes medical subjects, especially important in parts of the world where access to medical professionals may be limited.

However, much of this information can be unreliable and is available only in the most oft-spoken languages.

A group of experienced Wikipedia editors and medical professionals is trying to change that with the Medicine Translation Project, an effort to improve health care-related topics in English Wikipedia and translate them into other languages, including Hindi, Chinese, Persian, Tagalog, Indonesian and Macedonian.

Recently, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Individual Engagement Grant (IEG), a microgrant supporting work on Wikipedia-related activities, granted 10,000 US dollars to the Medicine Translation Project Community Organizing project, which aims to enhance communication and coordination among the team.

Medical student and Wikipedian User:CFCF along with two advisors, Dr. James Heilman (User:Doc James) and Jake Orlowitz (User:Ocaasi) lead the group. We spoke to founder CFCF over email.

Rising Voices (RV): How did the project get started? What inspired it and how did you identify the needs it would fulfill?

CFCF: [...] The project itself started off in 2011 when Dr. James Heilman and a number of translators from Translators Without Borders: Enrique Cavalitto and Ildiko Santana teamed up in an effort to translate medical articles. Since then, the project has exploded into a larger translation forum with hundreds of translators translating articles into almost a hundred different languages. [...]

For Wikimedia projects with a large pool of editors, we have been taking help from editors to assess what is needed, and what should be translated. On smaller projects we have simply set the goal to get anything on World Health Organization (WHO)’s list of essential medicines, as well as anything about neglected tropical diseases, also from a list by the WHO. As for these articles the project is still in an early phase, but we want to cover basically anything that might be relevant to readers, from cancer to emergency medicine.

RV: How is the process of translation going?

CFCF: [...] The problem is that there are so many layers of complications in the translation process. After an article has been written and been subject to review to ensure its quality, the article needs to be prepared and proofed for translation, after which translators need to be found. [...] Many of our translators are medical professionals and have in-depth knowledge in their native languages. On the top of it, they dedicate plenty of time on the content creation and translation. This helps to get good quality translations. What this also means is they they seldom have any knowledge of Wiki markup or Wikipedia. Someone else who knows the language in question has to go through links, templates etc. and fix them, proofread the translated content so it is up to scratch and readable.

CFCF: [...] The problem is that there are so many layers of complications in the translation process. After an article has been written and been subject to review to ensure its quality, the article needs to be prepared and proofed for translation, after which translators need to be found. [...] Many of our translators are medical professionals and have in-depth knowledge in their native languages. On the top of it, they dedicate plenty of time on the content creation and translation. This helps to get good quality translations. What this also means is they they seldom have any knowledge of Wiki markup or Wikipedia. Someone else who knows the language in question has to go through links, templates etc. and fix them, proofread the translated content so it is up to scratch and readable.

RV: How do you address this?

CFCF: To fix all this, it is best to have a local Wikipedian who can integrate the text. Most of the work has already been done. But, getting these things right is very crucial, especially on Wikipedias with vast content, where there already is a lot of content to link in.

I think the resistance we met early in the project's life was not against translation of content. But, because we did not spend enough time getting the translated articles up to shape before sending them live on the target Wikipedia.

What we saw on the Polish Wikipedia was that much of the issues were down to how they used different templates, and after I commissioned a bot to fix this, the articles started going live very quickly. After this, more and more editors became interested in helping out [...]

RV: Are you in conversation with the Wikipedia Zero team — a mobile data project focused on Wikipedia access in the developing world — about popularising this with their partners in the developing nations?

CFCF: Currently we are not in touch with the Wikipedia Zero team specifically, even though our works target the same communities. The difference between us and them is that we target developed countries as well as countries where there barely is any mobile connectivity at all, such as Burma where I do not know if we will be seeing Wikipedia Zero in the foreseeable future [...]

RV: What are your plans to engage with the larger Wikimedia communities that are multilingual and totally diverse?

CFCF: We aim to get high quality content in as many languages as we can. It is difficult to translate such deeply technical content, so we are really looking for professional translators, or individuals with some form of medical background so that information loss and corruption of content in translation is minimal.We recruit translators either off-wiki, or on the medical WikiProjects. We are still looking for translators who feel they are comfortable with such topics, and we especially need them in smaller languages. We are also searching them at Babylon on Meta Wiki.

WikiProject Med Foundation was the first attempt to get a truly global organization of medical Wikipedia editors. Most medical professionals are fluent in English, and we really try to engage in discussion in other languages when we can, so I think there is a real benefit in creating a global community for medical editors.

We are not large enough yet that we have all the relevant people on English Wikipedia, and we will probably never be because there are always specialists in other countries with very specific knowledge that we can leverage. That makes international collaboration really great.

As for the local language integrators, the idea is to have editors who are willing help out and be an intermediary between that community and our translator community. We have a page where all our finished translations are added. An integrator would patrol that page on a regular basis, inform the respective language Wikipedia that the new translation is ready. The language Wikipedia’s reader community share feedback on the translation quality and suggest for improvement. For us, it is really easy to just add articles without going through them thoroughly. But, that would not work at all. For things to work, we need someone who both knows Wiki markup and the target language so that the integration can go smoothly.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/global-voices-subhashish-panigrahi-july-27-2014-doctors-and-translators-are-working-together-to-bridge-wikipedias-medical-language-gap

Do You Have the Right to Unlock Your Smart Phone?

puneeth — 2013-08-07T07:32:52Z

In this blog post Puneeth Nagaraj looks at the recent controversy over the expiration of the exemption granted by the US Library of Congress for unlocking phones and compares the Indian position as per a 2005 Andhra Pradesh High Court judgment.

Being a gadget freak in India is difficult. Smartphone companies take months to release their latest product in India (if they do at all) and even when they are released, they are overpriced. For instance, Google's offering in the entry level tablet market, the Nexus 7 was released in India only in April — a full 9 months after its US debut. It is priced at Rs. 16,000 (USD 300) while it costs only USD 200 in the US. Google’s other device Nexus 10 is yet to make its way to the Indian market.

For long, the Indian gadget freak has relied on friends or family travelling abroad to get his/her hands on the latest gadgets on offer. It was not uncommon in the days following the release of the earlier models of the iPhone for eager owners of foreign bought phones to unlock or “jailbreak” their phones so they could use it in India. But the practice of “jailbreaking” or “android rooting” (hereinafter referred to as unlocking [*] for convenience) phones serves a wider purpose. Unlocking smart phones allows users to overcome limitations imposed by hardware manufacturers or carriers. As a result, users can freely switch service providers. While some manufacturers (like Apple) strongly oppose unlocking- even threatening to cancel warranty in case of unlocked devices, others do not mind it and some (like Google and HTC) even encourage it.

US Library of Congress Exemption

The whole controversy surrounding the legality of unlocking phones started in the US last October when the Library of Congress decided against renewing a copyright exemption it granted in 2006. As a result, the exemption expired in January and caused a furore in the US. The DMCA (1201 of the USC), prohibits circumvention of technological measures that protect access to a copyrighted work. This sort of protection is necessary to protecting copyrighted works in a digital format. But the US Congress was informed of the restrictive effects of such a prohibition. Consequently, the Congress created statutory exemptions to allow circumvention of these technological measures and empowered the Library of Congress to grant or renew such exemptions.

Despite the exemption granted by the Library of Congress in 2006, many phone companies successfully sued hardware providers who enabled unlocking of phones. With the expiration of the exemption in January, the status of phone unlocking hangs in a balance. This is especially troublesome as it is a widespread and in some cases essential practice. Both the White House and the FCC have been petitioned to legalise unlocking. In response, four different proposals have been tabled in the US Congress just for this purpose (here is an analysis of each of the bills).

At the moment, the unlocking of phones to run unapproved software is still legal as a result of an exemption granted in 2012. But this is also up for review in 2015. There is a need for a more comprehensive solution to address both these issues and the proposals before the Congress fall short.

Indian Position

Syed Asifuddin v. State of Andhra Pradesh
A case based on the unlocking of phones came before the Andhra Pradesh High Court in 2005. Certain Employees of TATA Indicom had facilitated the migration of customers contracted to Reliance for 3 years by unlocking their phones. Representatives of Reliance filed a criminal complaint against them alleging criminal breach of trust (IPC Section 409), cheating (IPC Section 420) and criminal conspiracy (IPC Section 120). They also claimed the violation of copyright and sought punishment under Section 63 of the Copyright Act, as well as Section 65 of the IT Act.

The court dismissed the criminal petitions under the IPC, IT Act and the Copyright Act. However, on the question of copyright infringement, the court held that if a person alters computer programme of another person or another computer company, the same would be infringement of copyright. The court also found that a cell phone would fall under the definition of a computer under Section 2(1) (i) of the Information Technology Act. Consequently, the court held that Section 65 of the IT Act, which deals with the tampering of computer source documents, would be applicable to the present case. The decision itself may not have precedent value on the issue as the High Court was merely ruling on the admissibility of the case on the basis of the above provisions and sent the matter back to the trial court to decide based on the evidence available. But the opinion of the court on copyright infringement and the IT Act is troubling.

Criticism

First, the court used the rather expansive definition of computers in the IT Act (Section 2(1) (i)) to include mobile phones as well. The definition under the above section reads as under:

any electronic, magnetic, optical or other high speed data processing device or system which performs logical, arithmetic and memory functions by manipulations of electronic, magnetic or optical impulses, and includes all input, output, processing, storage, computer software or communication facilities which are connected or related to the computer in a computer system or computer network.

It would not be unreasonable to see smartphones as being capable of “high speed data processing” or “input, output, processing, storage”. However, the phones in question here were basic Samsung N191 and LG-2030 phones (images of these phones can be seen here and here). Even if it might be conceivable that such basic phones can be put in the same bracket as desktop computers or laptops, the court had to examine the definition in the context of the substantial provision. In this case, the substantial provisions were Section 65 and 66 of the IT Act, which deal with tampering source documents and hacking computer systems respectively. So, by equating a basic mobile phone to a computer, the court equated unlocking a mobile phone to hacking a computer. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that Section 66 prescribes criminal punishment to hackers.

Second, the court also erred in its ruling on the Copyright Act. Once again, the court held a basic phone to mean a computer under Section 2(ffb). More worryingly, it was held that the Electronic Serial Number (ESN), a unique code given to every phone would qualify as a computer program under Section 2(ffc) and is thus subject to copyright under Section 14 of the Copyright Act. In doing so, the court has set the bar extremely low for copyrightablity of computer programs. Needless to say this judgment needs to be reconsidered if not watered down. While there is recognition that bootloader protection programmes barely meet the standard for copyright, the Andhra Pradesh High Court has granted protection to a randomly generated 11 digit number.

Fortunately, the case of Syed Asifuddin was not a final ruling on the issue as the court sent the matter back to the trial court. However, there is every chance that a future court can rely on the erroneous reasoning in this case. Further, fair use arguments can always be mad in the favour of an individual consumer who wishes to migrate to another service provider.

The larger problem is that by giving an expansive meaning to the provisions in the Copyright Act and the IT Act, it can be used to target businesses that facilitate unlocking devices that can be targeted (like in the US). Unlike in the US, phone unlocking is not a business in India and is usually done by small business owners who sell and repair mobiles. The consequences of suing such businesses can be worse in India as they can end up in jail for an act that falls in an undefined area of the law. It seems that the situation may be resolved in the US in the near future in favour of the consumer — although the issue of the business of unlocking phones must be resolved finally. The position in India is worrisome especially due to the threat of criminal persecution.

[*]. The term jailbreaking is used specifically in the case of iOS devices and android rooting, as the name suggests is used in the case of android devices. Technically speaking, they are very different given that most android devices do not restrict access to their “bootloaders”. Acknowledging the difference between the two, the discussion here is focused on overriding technological measures meant to protect underlying copyrighted works.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/do-you-have-right-to-unlock-your-smart-phone

Discussion on Creation of Social Media Guidelines & Strategy for Telugu Wikimedia

manasarao — 2017-10-24T14:42:24Z

Between 1 to 16 September, an online discussion took place on the creation of social media guidelines and strategy for Telugu Wikimedia handles online.

An online discussion of guidelines and policies for the various Telugu Wikimedia social media handles was conducted. User:Pavan santhosh.s suggested a set of strategies and guidelines that can be taken into consideration for an official Social Media Policy of Telugu Wikimedia Projects. These suggestions included defining objectives, guidelines (with do's and don'ts) and strategies for the Social Media Policy. User:Ravichandra supported the idea and suggested another objective(showcasing best quality works of Wikipedia). User:Viswanadh added some strategies (such as writing a series of posts about technical aspects that help Wikipedians). User:Pranayraj1985 suggested some don'ts in handling Wikipedia pages as well as handles while User:Rajasekhar1961 expanded the strategy to other sister projects(Telugu Wikisource and Wiktionary). Finally, User:Chaduvari suggested not to name any page as official to avoid possible conflicts. User:Swaralasika announced consensus and User:Pavan santhosh.s created a page based on the discussion in order for the community to reflect.

User:Pranayraj1985 said, "there are pages & groups for Telugu Wikipedia in Facebook for years. We are using them as major social media promotion channels. I(Pranay) am publishing content related to Telugu Wikipedia in those channels. Some of the community members also been admins of page and group. But once or twice, in Facebook page and group, unrelated posts were published and I informed this to Wikimedians active on Facebook and removed those posts. I am glad that this discussion happened and community came up with guidelines and strategy now. This is very much needed.

The guideline page can be found here.

Although the event was successful in creating guidelines, none of the input included women's voices as there were no female participants. Here's hoping there is a diversity of voices in future discussions.

With input from Pavan Santhosh S., Telugu Community Advocate, CIS-A2K.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/discussion-on-creation-of-social-media-guidelines-strategy-for-telugu-wikimedia

Disability Exceptions in Copyright Legislations

rishi — 2015-01-12T02:14:53Z

In the year 2006, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) conducted a study on different national approaches to copyright exception for persons with disabilities. Over 60 countries have an exception in their Copyright laws permitting conversion of works into accessible formats for the benefit of persons who cannot read print. The scope of the exception varies, in terms of the beneficiaries covered, formats permitted, restrictions on who can convert, etc.

On June 28, 2013 the Marrakesh Treaty was signed by 51 countries, to facilitate the creation of accessible copyrighted works for the disabled. The treaty, however, will not come into force until 20 countries ratify it. India, in June 2013, became the first country to ratify it. In this report, we aim to provide an update to the 2006 WIPO study, whereby all relevant details, including whether the countries are signatories to the Treaty are given in a simplified manner. This is to ensure that the information is readily accessible in a simple and comprehensive table for all readers.

A consolidated list of copyright legislations can be found here. See table below for the country-wise exceptions.

Country-wise Exceptions in Copyright Legislations

Country	Legislation	Scope	Works Covered	Formats covered	Who can convert	Marrakesh Treaty Signatory	Ratified UNCRPD
Armenia	Article 22 (h), Law on Copyright and Related Rights adopted by the National Assembly of Armenia on 15 June 2006	Persons who require Braille and other formats designed for blind people	Lawfully disclosed work, except those created for the blind	Braille and other special means for the blind	No restrictions	No	Yes
Australia	Sections 47A, 112, Part VB Division 3, 116A, The Copyright Act 1968 as amended up to 2014	Persons with print disability, persons who by reason of old age, disability or literary problems are unable to handle books or newspapers or to read or comprehend written material	Sound recordings of literary or dramatic works, published editions of literary or dramatic works,	Sound recordings, Braille, large print, photographic or electronic, sound broadcast	By body administering an institution assisting persons with print disability, persons holding print disability radio license	Yes	Yes
Austria	Section 42d, Federal law on Copyrights on Literary and Artistic works and Related Rights as amended up to 2011	Covers all 'disabled persons' however does not define who is disabled	Published works, which are not possible or it is substantially difficult on account of their disability for the person to access a published work	Any suitable format	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
Azerbaijan	Article 19.6, Law on Copyright and Related Rights, 1996 as amended up to 2013	Persons requiring Braille and other formats designed for blind people	Any lawfully disclosed works, except those created especially for the purpose	Braille or other special means for the benefit of the blind	No restrictions	No	Yes
Belarus	Article 19, Law on Copyright and Related Rights, 1998 as amended up to 2003	Persons requiring Braille and other formats designed for blind people	Any work other than those created especially for this purpose	Braille or other special means for the benefit of the blind	No restrictions	No	Yes
Belize	Section 83, The Copyright Act, as amended up to 2008	Persons who are hearing-impaired, or physically or mentally handicapped in other ways	Television broadcasts or cable programs	Copies which are sub-titled or otherwise adapted for the special needs of the persons	A body designated for the purposes of this section by order of the Minister	No	Yes
Brazil	Section 46.I(d) of Law No 9610 on Copyright and Neighboring Rights, 1998	Visually handicapped persons	Literary, artistic or scientific works	Braille or by means of another process using a medium designed for visually handicapped users	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
Bulgaria	Articles 24(1)10, 24(2), 23, 25a(1) and 25a(2) of the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act, 1993 as amended up to 2006	Persons requiring Braille and analogous specialized formats	Lawfully disclosed works, except computer programs	Braille or other analogous formats	No restrictions	No	Yes
Cameroon	Section 29(1)(g) of Law No. 2000/011 on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights, 2000	Blind persons	Works published with the authorization of the author	Limited to Braille	No restrictions	Yes	Signed but not ratified
Canada	Section 32, Copyright Act, 1985 as amended up to 203	Persons with 'perceptual disability' and 'print disability' which is any disability which prevents or inhibits a person from reading or hearing a literary, musical, dramatic or artistic work in its original format, including disability resulting from (a) severe or total impairment of sight or hearing or the inability to focus or move one's eyes; (b) the inability to hold or manipulate a book; (c) an impairment relating to comprehension.	Literary, musical or dramatic works other than cinematographic work and not where the work is commercially available in a format specially designed to meet the needs of a person with the disability	Formats specially designed for persons with a perceptual disability, but not large print books	Any person at the request of a person with a perceptual disability or non-profit organization acting for his or her benefit	No	Yes
China	Section 22(12), Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China (as amended up to 2010)	Persons requiring Braille	Published work and additionally applies to the rights of publishers, performers, producers of sound recordings and video recordings, radio stations and television stations	Braille	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
Croatia	Sections 80, 86, 98, Copyright and Related Rights Act as amended up to 2013	Persons with disability.	Lawfully disclosed work	Any format required by the disabled person	No restrictions	No	Yes
Czech Republic	Article 38, Copyright and Rights Related to Copyright as amended up to 2006	Persons with disability	Lawfully published works with the exception of computer programs	Reproduction to the extent required by the specific disability	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
Denmark	The Consolidated Act on Copyright, 2010	Blind, visually impaired and deaf people, people suffering from a speech impediment and people unable to read printed text on account of a handicap	Lawfully published works	Any format specifically intended for those with such disabilities	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
Dominican Republic	Article 44, Law No 65-00, on Copyright of 21 August 2000	Sightless persons and persons with other physical disabilities. However, only public communication if permitted	Scientific, literary or artistic works	No reproduction is permitted	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
El Salvador	Article 44 (d) of the Law on Promotion and Protection of Intellectual Property, 1993	Blind and other handicapped persons	All works of the mind including literary, scientific, artistic, musical and dramatic works. However, mere public communication is permitted and not reproduction	Reproduction is not permitted	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
Estonia	Section 19, Copyright Act (as amended up to 2000)	Blind persons	Works made available to the public except those created especially for the blind.	Braille and other technical formats for the benefits of blind persons	No restrictions	No	Yes
Fiji	Section 185, Copyright Act 1999	People who are hearing-impaired or physically or mentally handicapped in other ways	Television broadcasts or cable programs	Copies which are sub-titled or otherwise modified for the benefits of the beneficiaries	Designated body	No	Signed but not ratified
Finland	Section 17, Copyright Act, 1961, as amended up to 2010	Persons with visual impairments and others who, owing to the disability or illness cannot use the works in the ordinary manner	Published literary or musical works	Text readable by visually impaired persons	No restrictions. However, sound recordings can be made only by institutions	Yes	Signed but not ratified
France	Articles L122-5 and L331-5 to L331-21 of the Intellectual Property Code as amended up to August 2006	Person with motor, psychological, hearing or visual disability which must be at least 50 % assessed against specified relevant standards	Any lawfully disclosed work	Any format used to the extent consistent with the nature of the disability	Disabled persons or organizations listed by the relevant administrative authority	Yes	Yes
Gabon	Article 33, Copyright Law	Persons with a disability including people who are visually impaired	Lawfully published work	Limited to formats for "welfare purposes"	No restrictions	No	Yes
Georgia	Article 23, Law of Georgia on Copyright and Neighboring Rights (as amended up to 2010)	Persons requiring Braille or other means for blind people	Lawfully disclosed work other than those specially created for use by blind people.	Relief dotted print or other special means for blind people	No restrictions	No	Yes
Germany	Articles, 45a, 63 and 95b, Copyright Act, 1965 as amended up to 2013)	Disabled persons	All works, except where the accessible version is available	Formats accessible to the disabled persons to the extent required	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
Greece	Articles 28A, 28C and 66A, Law No. 2121/1993 on Copyright, Related Rights and Cultural Matters (as amended up to 2003)	Blind and deaf-mute persons	Any lawfully disclosed work	Formats directly related to the disability and specifically required by the disability	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
Hungary	Articles 41(1) and 33, Act No LXXVI of 1999 on Copyright (as amended up to 2007)	Disabled persons	Any lawfully disclosed work	Formats designed specially to benefit the disabled	No restrictions	No	Yes
Iceland	Article 19, Copyright Act No 73 of 1972, as amended up to 2006	Blind and visually impaired persons	Published literary or musical works	Braille	No restrictions	No	Signed but not ratified
India	Section 52, Copyright Act 1957 (as amended up to 2012)	Disabled persons	Any lawfully disclosed works	Any accessible format	Any person to facilitate persons with disability to access works including sharing with any person with disability and any organization working for the benefit of the persons with disabilitites	Yes	Yes
Indonesia	Article 15d, Law of the Republic of Indonesia regarding Copyright, No 19 2002	Blind persons	Scientific, artistic and literary works	Braille	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
Ireland	Sections 104, 106, 374, Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000	Persons with physical or mental disability	Any lawfully disclosed work	Modifications permitted to meet the special needs of a the disabled persons	A designated body	Yes	Signed but not ratified
Israel	Section 28A, Copyright Law, 2007	Persons with disabilities	Any lawfully disclosed work	Formatted to meet the needs of the disabled persons	Any Not for Profit Institution where one of its objectives or primary activities is education, training or welfare of persons with disabilities, A Government Office, or An educational institution determined by the Minister	No	Yes
Italy	Articles 71 bis and 71 nonies of the Law for the Protection of Copyright and Neighbouring Rights, (as amended up to 2010)	Persons with disability in the categories as defined by Ministerial decree	Any lawfully published work	Formats directly related to the disability and only to that extent	No restrictions, but could be set by Ministerial decree	No	Yes
Japan	Articles 33bis, 37, 48, Copyright Law as amended up to 2004	Visually handicapped persons and visually handicapped children/pupils	Works that have been lawfully disclosed and school textbooks (for children)	Braille, including electronically recorded Braille and Large prints	No restrictions found, Braille libraries and other establishments designated by the Cabinet order for sound recordings	No	Yes
Kazakhstan	Articles 19 and 16, Law on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights, 1996, as amended up to 2012	Blind persons and persons requiring Braille	Any work, except those created in special formats for the blind	Braille or other special means for the benefit of the blind	No restrictions	No	Signed but not ratified
Republic of Korea	Articles 30 and 34, Copyright Act No 3916, 1989 as amended up to 2013	Blind persons	Works that have been made public	Braille or sound recordings	No restrictions for Braille, sound recordings can be used only at facilities established for the promotion of the blind as prescribed by Presidential Decree	Yes	Yes
Kyrgyztan	Articles 19, 16, Law on Copyright and related Rights,1998 as amended up to 2014	Persons requiring Braille and Blind persons	Lawfully published works, except those created for this purpose	Braille copies or those produced by other means for blind persons	No restrictions	No	Signed but not ratified
Latvia	Sections 19, 22, Copyright Law as amended up to 2011)	Visually and hearing impaired persons	Any work published lawfully	Formats that permit a visually or hearing impaired person to use it	Organizations for the visually and hearing impaired and libraries providing services to such people are permitted to undertake this activity. However, other persons are not barred other than by limitations imposed	No	Yes
Lithuania	Article 25, Law on Copyright and Related Rights No VIII-1185, 1999 (As amended up to 2014)	Visually and hearing impaired persons	Lawfully published works other than those created in special formats for this purpose	In any format that would benefit the persons having hearing or visual impairment	No restrictions found	Yes	Yes
Macau	Articles 65, 66, Decree-Law No 43/99/M of 1999	Blind persons and those who require Braille	Published works and lectures by Professors	Braille copies or any other format for blind persons	No restrictions on making copies on Braille. However, fixation of lectures may be done only by the Blind persons	No	No
Malaysia	Section 13, Copyright Act 1987 as amended up to 2006	Persons who require Braille copies and persons who are deaf, hard of hearing, physically or mentally handicapped in other ways	Any published work, and television broadcasts	Braille copies and copies with subtitles or other modifications for the end beneficiaries	Braille copies can be used only by the Braille MAB Library, and for television broadcasts, bodies and institutions which the Minister has prescribed	No	Yes
Republic of Moldova	Article 22, Law of Republic of Moldova on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights, 2004	Blind persons	Published works except those created for this purpose	Braille only	No restrictions found	Yes	Yes
Mongolia	Article 24, Law of Mongolia on Copyright as amended up to 2006	Visually and hearing impaired persons	Lawfully published works	Any format that can be used by the disabled	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
Netherlands	Articles 15i, 15c and 29a of the Copyright Act 1912 as amended up to 2008	Handicapped individuals	Literary, scientific and artistic works	Formats directly related to the handicap and necessary because of the handicap	No restrictions found	No	Signed but not ratified
New Zealand	Articles 69, 89, Copyright Act 1994 (version 2014)	A person with a print disability [as defined in Article 69(4)] and persons who are deaf or hard of hearing, or physically or mentally handicapped in any other way	For print disabled, literary or dramatic works and for others, television broadcasts or cable programmes	Braille copies or copies with other modifications for the special needs of the people, and copies that are subtitled or otherwise modified for the special needs	A body prescribed by regulations	No	Yes
Nicaragua	Articles 32 (2), Law on Copyright and Related Rights, 1999 (version 2001)	Visually impaired people	Any lawfully published work	Copies made using the Braille system or any other format necessary	No restrictions	No	Yes
Nigeria	Second Schedule, Copyright Act, 1988 No 47 (No. 42) (version 2004)	Blind people for Braille copies, disabled persons for sound recordings	Any lawfully published works	Braille copies or sound recordings	For sound recordings, only institutions or establishments approved by the Government for the promotion of the welfare of other disabled persons	Yes	Yes
Norway	Sections 17, 17a, 17b, 11, 53b and 12, of Act No 2, relating to Copyright in Literary, Scientific and Artistic Works Etc (version 2005)	Blind persons and other disabled persons	Any published literary, scientific, musical work, film and, any published film or picture or transmitted broadcast program , except any work which has been made specifically for this purpose	For blind persons, any form other than a sound fixation and for the disabled, a fixation on a device that can reproduce the fixation.	No restrictions for the Blind, however, for the disabled, only organizations and libraries as specified by the Kind	Yes	Yes
Panama	Article 47 of Law No. 15 of 8 August 1994	Blind and other handicapped persons. Mere public communication is permitted	Any lawfully published work	No reproduction permitted, hence no accessible formats can be made	No restrictions founds	Yes	Yes
Paraguay	Articles 39 and 45, Law No. 1328/98 on Copyright and Related Rights	Visually handicapped persons	Lawfully disclosed work	Braille or another specific form for the use of visually handicapped	No restrictions found	Yes	Yes
Peru	Articles 43, 50 of Copyright Act- Legislative Decree No 822 of 23 April 1996	Blind people	Lawfully disclosed works	Braille or another specific format to assist blind persons	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
Poland	Articles 33¹, 34, 35, Act on Copyright and Related Rights, 1994	Disabled persons	Lawfully disseminated works	No restrictions on the format; any format which is required by the disabled shall be permitted	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
Portugal	Articles 75, 76, 80, 221, 222 of Copyright and Related Right as amended up to 2008	Blind people and people with disability	Lawfully published works	Braille or another system for blind people, and formats directly related to the disability	No restrictions	No	Yes
Russian Federation	Articles 19, 16 of Law of Copyright and Neighbouring Rights, 1993	Persons needing access to Braille copies or other formats for the blind	Lawfully published works, other than those specifically created for this purpose	Braille copies or other special formats for the blind	No restrictions	No	Yes
Singapore	Sections 54, 261D of Copyright Act (Chapter 63) version 2008	Handicapped readers	Literary or dramatic works that have been published, and where the format has been published, it can be made under the exception that it is not possible to obtain the published copy in a reasonable time and at an ordinary commercial price	Sound recording, Braille copies, large print or photographic version	Body administering an institution assisting handicapped readers, which includes educational institutions	No	Yes
Slovakia	Sections 29, 25, 38 of Copyright Act, 2004	Handicapped persons	Lawfully disclosed works	Formats used exclusively for the needs of the handicapped people	No restrictions	No	Yes
Slovenia	Articles 47a, 46, 166c, Copyright and Related Rights Act, 1995 (amended up to 2001)	Persons with disability	Any work that is not available in the desired format	Formats used directly to assist the disability	No restrictions	Yes	Yes
Spain	Article 31, Royal Legislative Decree 1/1996, (amended up to 2011)	Blind persons	Lawfully disclosed works	Braille system or another specific method	No restrictions	No	Yes
Sweden	Articles 17, 52f of Act on Copyright in Literary and Artistic Works	Persons with disability	Literary and musical works and works of visual art	Formats that can be used to assist the disabled	No restrictions, except for communication of any work to those with a disability, and making, distribution and communication of a sound recording, when the activity can only be undertaken by libraries and organizations as decided by the Government	No	Yes
Ukraine	Articles 21, 15, Law on Copyright and Related Rights 2011	Blind persons	Lawfully disclosed works	Braille only	No restrictions	No	Yes
Uzbekistan	Article 28, Law on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights, 1996 (2011 version)	Blind persons	Lawfully published works, except those specially created for blind people	Relief-dot font or other means for blind people	No restrictions	No	Yes
United Kingdom	Sections 31A to 31F, 74, 28, and 296ZE of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (2003 version)	Visually impaired people, people who are deaf or hard of hearing or physically or mentally handicapped in other ways.	Literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works or published editions, which a visually impaired person has in their lawful possession and which are not accessible to him because of the impairment, television broadcasts, including those delivered by a cable	Any accessible copy, and copies that are subtitled or otherwise modified for the special needs of the beneficiaries	(i) For making accessible copies of works that the person have in their possession, only the visually impaired or someone on his behalf; (ii) for making copies by approved bodies for supply to visually impaired persons, an approved body which is an educational establishment and (iii) for making subtitled or modified copies of broadcasts for supply, only a designated body	Yes	Yes
United States of America	Sections 121, 110 and 1201 of United States Code -Title 17, as amended up to 2004	Blind persons, or other persons with disabilities	(i) For making specialized formats by authorized entities, previously published, non dramatic literary work, but not standardized, secure or norm-referenced tests and related testing material, or computer programs, other than the portions in conventional human language that are displayed to users when the program is in use (ii) For publishers, instructional materials for use in elementary or secondary schools (iii) For transmission of performances of literary works to blind/handicapped persons, any literary work which has been published at least ten years prior to the date of performance	(i) Specialized formats, i.e, Braille, audio or digital texts, exclusively for use by blind people or people with other disabilities (ii) Copies of electronic files as described in legislation relating to individuals with disabilities. The copies must be used solely for reproduction and distribution of the contents in specialized formats (iii) Copies are not permitted except transmissions specifically designed for and primarily directed to blind or other handicapped persons who are unable to read normal printed material as a result of their handicap	(i) Activity must be by an authorized entity, which is non-profit organization or governmental agency that has primary mission to provide specialized services relating to training, education or adaptive reading or information access needs of blind/persons with disabilities (ii) Activity by publisher of print instructional materials (iii) The transmission must be made through the facilities of a governmental body, a non-commercial educational broadcast station, a radio sub carrier authorization or a cable system	Yes	Signed but not ratified

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/disability-exceptions-in-copyright-legislations