Centre for Internet and Society

8 Challenges for Improving Indian Language Wikipedias

subha — 2016-03-29T17:05:15Z

After more than 10 years in existence, the Indian-language Wikipedias still are not known to many Indian language speakers. Wikipedia became the largest encyclopedia in history as a result of thousands of volunteer editors.

The article was originally published in the Wire on March 17, 2016 and later mirrored on Opensource.com on March 28, 2016.

Whereas native-language Wikipedias are becoming game changers in other corners of the world, the scenario in India is skewed. While speaking at the "BHASHA: Indian Languages Digital Festival," a day-long discourse at New Delhi on Indian languages and their state in the new media (especially on the digital platforms), I shared challenges that Indian language Wikipedias are facing.

1. Language communities

Many native Indian language speakers do not know how to search online using language typed in their script. Because Google's home page does not display their language script as an option, people often think that their language does not exist on the Internet. Google now has nine Indian languages. But this does not stop a Santali or Manipuri speaker from searching in Unicode Ol chiki (script for Santali) or in Unicode Meithei (script for Manipuri). Google and other search engines will display content in any script on the Internet, but not knowing this keeps many people off the Internet, which also means off of Wikipedia.

2. Wikipedia's editor community

Wikipedia is created by people like you and me. From writing to editing, everything happens voluntarily. Many people do not understand that they can correct mistakes and help improve Wikipedia articles. The Wikipedia editor communities for several Indian languages are really small. Although these languages are spoken by millions of people, only a handful of editors contribute in editing the Wikipedia in these languages. As of January 2016, the Hindi Wikipedia had only 89 editors, whereas Hindi falls right behind English on the list of top languages by number of native speakers.

3. Language input in computer

A majority of people in India do not know how to type in their own language. Also, there is little documentation for users to learn about language input. Even though many government-run schools in India are seeing more computers and have Internet access, native language input and several other basic computer training are not widely taught in schools in all states. Free software for language input is available, and the challenges of typing in Indian languages (PDF) that existed in the past are mostly resolved.

4. Language input in mobile devices

With more than 1 billion people in India (PDF) with mobile phones, the 15% Internet penetration rate will soon grow at a faster pace. This growth and tough competition is compelling telecom service providers to drop data charges, which will help more Indians get access to the Internet. If these people are not educated about native language input, then they will be stuck inside an English-centric Internet rather than being able to navigate in their own languages. Many Indians who have smartphones need full Indian language support—and especially built-in input methods—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 a barrier to accessing knowledge. For example, let's look at my state Odisha. The Kerala (Indian state) government's official tourism portal is available in Odia and other Indian languages, but the Odisha government's tourism portal has no information in the Odia language today. Our languages are largely neglected in our own states.

6. Mismatch of conventional and new media

Many conventional media houses still use non-standard variants of ASCII/ISCII script encoding systems instead of adopting the Unicode standard. As a global standard, Unicode can help unify the world and has been available for Indian languages for almost 25 years. But many of our print media have failed to adopt this, and many popular Indian-language newspapers still aren't available in Unicode.

7. Lack of open access

Much information online, including content created by the government, is under copyright licensing. The pay-wall gardens and copyright restrictions keep information closed and prevents people from sharing content. Wikipedia content, on the other hand, is available under Creative Commons Share-Alike licensing, which allows anyone to use the content (and even distribute commercial copies of it). The idea of opening up content under free licenses can help information reach countless additional people.

8. Accessibility

India has more than 60-million people with hearing impairments. Many people with physical disabilities need good text-to-speech and speech-to-text engines. And these software solutions must be free, so that anyone, regardless of their finances, can contribute to Wikipedia in their own languages.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-source-march-28-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-8-challenges-for-improving-indian-language-wikipedias

7th Emerging Markets Finance Conference

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T00:51:00Z

Anubha Sinha participated as a panelist in the "Intellectual Property, Copyright and Patent Finance" session in Mumbai on December 15, 2016. The event was organized by Finance Research Group in association with Vanderbilt Law School.

Programme Committee

N. Prabhala, Centre For Advanced Financial Research And Learning
Tarun Ramadorai, Imperial College London
Subrata Sarkar, IGIDR
Ajay Shah, National Institute for Public Finance and Policy
Avanidhar Subramanyam, University of California, Los Angeles
Ram Thirumalai, Indian School of Business
Susan Thomas, IGIDR
Pradeep Yadav, University of Oklahoma, Business School
Yesha Yadav, Vanderbilt Law School

For more info and the agenda click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/7th-emerging-markets-finance-conference

6th Annual International Conference on Law & Policy issues "68th Constitution Day"

Admin — 2017-11-27T13:53:07Z

Anubha Sinha attended the 68th Constitution Day on November 25, 2017 at Shangri-La's Eros. Indian National Bar Association in association with “Make in India” organized this event.

Download the brochure

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/6th-annual-international-conference-on-law-policy-issues-68th-constitution-day

5th Global Congress On IP And The Public Interest: Successes, Strategies Highlighted

Admin — 2018-10-31T01:57:59Z

More than 400 activists, academics and practitioners from over 50 countries gathered at this year’s Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest, according to organisers.

The story by David Branigan was published in Intellectual Property Watch on October 3, 2018.

At the Congress, participants shared success stories, developed strategies, and engaged in critical dialogue to re-think and re-invent intellectual property systems that serve the public interest.

The 5th Global Congress on Intellectual Property and The Public Interest was hosted by American University Washington College of Law in Washington, DC from 27-29 September. The core goal of the Congress, according to the website, is “to promote evidence-based policy-making by fostering partnerships between academics and policy advocates from around the world.”

The Congress featured three concurrent, but interconnected, tracks centred around copyright user rights, access to medicines, and trade. A list of the many panels, workshops and other events of the Congress can be found in the event agenda.

Key themes that emerged from the plenary sessions of the Congress include the need to take a critical look at the association between intellectual property and development, the important roles that both IP activism and academic research play in shifting practice, and the complex tension between pursuing incremental IP reform in the short-term, while envisioning and building toward IP system change in the long-term.

Participants were asked by organisers to contribute statements and to vote in an online poll to chart and map participant perspectives at this year’s Congress. The interactive results of the poll can be viewed here.

Access to Medicines Track

Intellectual Property Watch followed the access to medicines track throughout the Congress, to develop a broad picture of the persistent challenges and new strategies in this field, and to identify key initiatives to feature in the coming months. Below are some of the themes that emerged over the course of the sessions, along with key highlights.

Compulsory Licensing

Some participants highlighted their countries’ use of compulsory licensing to reduce drug prices and to maximise health budget capacity, with notable examples from Ecuador, Chile and Malaysia. Participants identified that many other countries, however, are not taking full advantage of these flexibilities, which can be partly attributable to a lack of awareness regarding these flexibilities, and a lack of systems to employ them. They noted that this is often compounded by IP-centric technical assistance that frames strong IP systems as necessary for development. Many participants argued that compulsory licensing, along with other intellectual property flexibilities, should be fully normalised, and that IP law should be structured to maximize the use of these flexibilities, rather than treat them as exceptions. Some also argued for the institution of international or regional coordination mechanisms for compulsory licensing.

Competition Law

Many participants, representing activist organisations working for access to medicines, noted that their campaigns were largely focused on the price of a particular drug in a particular country. Pursuing access to medicines on such a piecemeal basis, they explained, does not produce sustainable change within the IP system itself. This, they noted, is a similar challenge faced when issuing compulsory licences. Participants explained that pursuing strategies based in competition law could perhaps offer a more sustainable solution to address excessive pricing across a range of drugs. This strategy, they explained, could move forward key legal reforms to systemically challenge pharmaceutical monopolies and bring about more competitive drug pricing.

Innovation

According to participants, the term innovation infers a particular narrative, similar to “intellectual property,” and has been used by industry to justify the pharmaceutical patent system. One participant explained that patents are currently being granted on the basis of utility, rather than real inventiveness. He explained that the term innovation has come to represent the industry-led process of shaping markets and cycles of consumption, and that therefore, we need to reconsider our use of the term.

Research and Development

Many participants highlighted the dysfunction of the current monopoly incentive system for pharmaceutical research and development, and advocated for other systems such as delinking the price of pharmaceuticals from the cost of research and development and the volume of sales. Others highlighted examples of how drugs for neglected diseases can be developed and manufactured without intellectual property incentives, and still others how drug licences can be efficiently pooled to facilitate widespread generic drug production. Another participant further illustrated the dysfunction of the current system, noting that much of the research and development of patented pharmaceuticals was publicly funded, and that there needs to be greater public accountability in drug pricing.

Medicines as Non-Patentable

One important perspective, expressed by participants across tracks, is simply that medicines should be non-patentable and accessible to all people, without restriction.

Intellectual Property Watch will feature some of the key access to medicines initiatives highlighted at the Congress in greater depth and detail in the coming months.

Background of the Global Congress

The First Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest was held in 2011 at American University Washington College of Law in Washington, DC, and the specific policy goals of the Congress were summarized in the 2011 Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest.

The Congress was subsequently hosted in 2012 by Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade of FGV Direito, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2013 by University of Cape Town IP Unit, in Cape Town, South Africa, and in 2015 by the Centre for Internet and Society, in New Delhi, India. Intellectual Property Watch has attended them all.

More background information on the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest can be found at infojustice.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/5th-global-congress-on-ip-and-the-public-interest-successes-strategies-highlighted

5th Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest

Admin — 2018-10-02T03:01:50Z

Sunil Abraham, Anubha Sinha and Swaraj Paul Barooah attended the Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest, in Washington DC, from September 24 - 29, 2018. The event was co-organized by PublicCitizen, Washington College of Law, American University, O'Neill Institute and the American Assembly, Columbia University.

CIS participated in several of the sessions spread over the 5 days:

Anubha Sinha attended the pre-Congress trainings on Users' Rights, and Internet and Trade on September 24 and 25, 2018.
Sunil Abraham and Anubha Sinha attended a WIPO SCCR Strategy meeting organised by Knowledge Ecology International, DC.
Swaraj Paul Barooah made a presentation at the Microsoft Panel Event titled "Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence" held at the Microsoft Innovation and Policy Centre. His co-panelists were Pam Samuelson (Berkeley Law), Niva Elkin-Koren (Uni of Haifa) and Pedro Mizukami (Founder of Centro, Brazil). The session was moderated by Mike Carroll and Christine Farley (both of American University).
Anubha Sinha and Sunil Abraham along with Jorge Contreras (University of Utah), spoke on the panel titled "Fueling the Affordable Smartphone Revolution in India" where they presented work on the PT project.
CIS signed on as supporting members to the Civil Society Proposal for a Treaty on Education and Research Activities (TERA) which was formally finalized and made ready for organizational and individual endorsements. The treaty can be viewed here.

For more info on the sessions click here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/5th-global-congress-on-ip-and-the-public-interest

4th IPR Researchers Confluence

praskrishna — 2015-04-04T06:15:08Z

Maggie Huang attended the event organized by Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai and National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai with support from Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi on March 27 and 28, 2015.

Maggie Huang presented intermediary findings of the research entitled "India’s Music Copyright Management in the Age of Music Streaming" positing streaming services as the 'frugal innovation' due to its low price tier. See Maggie's presentation here. For more information on the event, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/fourth-ipr-researchers-confluence

4th Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest: Statement of Conclusion for the IP and Development track

nehaa — 2015-12-25T02:22:52Z

The 4th Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest was held from December 15 to 17, 2015 in New Delhi. This post provides a summary of the event.

This was also published on the Global Congress blog.

Wrap up note 1: Feedback on broad discussion in the IP and Dev track – set of collected key points:

This year, the discussions included attention to broad perspectives on clarifying the meaning and reality of open collaborative innovation, as well as significant focus on the sub-themes of economic development (innovation and software patents, clean technologies, climate change and green patenting, issues of branding and plain packaging); sustainable development (agriculture and geographic indicators [GI]); policy, law and regulation (role of governments, patenting, compulsory licensing [CL], global institutions [particularly WTO, WIPO and WHO] and national institutions [particularly patent offices]). Trade dominated the discussions across the IP and Dev track, including the TPP and other issues, reflecting the strong global trade agenda.

Missing areas in the track papers, workshops and panel discussions included the limited discussion on traditional knowledge (TK); the work of indigenous groups and how they are navigating the IP landscape; biodiversity; biotech and food security; innovation in the nanotechnology sphere; and inclusive development. Accessibility to innovations for low-income households, and accessibility to innovations at the country level needs greater attention. These topics can be brought out more strongly, more directly.

The value of building research networks to create explicit knowledge and coherence in research-based evidence for advocacy and policy-making was made visible in the workshop session presented by Open AIR, with the Open AIR network as the exemplar. The challenge is to translate the kinds of research and evidence presented at the GC into content and value for policy-making and trade negotiations.

Wrap up note 2: Value of the deliberations and future research:

This is a new track in the GC, introduced in 2015. It is an important track for this and future Global Congresses because it brings together the many strands of research, advocacy and other work that are related to topics in innovation, IP and development, but which are not specifically about openness, user rights or A2M. This is a very broad range of fields of study, from agriculture to nanotechnology. It was proposed that the track be renamed “Innovation and Development” to more explicitly describe its focus.

From this GC, it has become clearer what future topics may be considered for papers and other inputs into the IP and Dev track. Such topics include counter-narratives to mainstream IP perspectives; bringing IP for development in multiple sectors to the fore – in education; in automotive manufacturing; in technology evolution; in agricultural production and food security; in the broad policy, law and regulatory environment pertinent to these and other sectoral perspectives. For example, in the paper on green patenting, reference was made to Tesla and Toyota releasing patents, but the session did not get to discuss that. The papers presented at the 4th GC suggest many areas of focus for future research and future GCs – perhaps the best way to think about this exploration is through greater attention to innovation in a range of social and economic sectors; to consider the particular challenges of innovation, IP and development in LDCs; to study innovation ecosystems and where IP fits in these ecosystem. Cross-track sessions are also considered to be very important because of the knowledge sharing that takes place across sectors, for example the discussions on patent wars in the access to medicines (A2M) track provided food for thought with respect to emerging issues in the software sector.

Wrap up note 3: Ideas and implications of GC sessions for future directions for research, collaborations and next GC:

For the next GC, mobilization is required across various geographic regions and a significant discussion is required on preparation and design of the sub-themes, based on the notes above. The requirement for more evidence-based research was noted. It was recommended that the future name of the track should be Innovation and Development. The core group, comprised of track leaders and sessions chairs, should continue the leadership of the track from GC to GC, bringing additional interested persons on board, in particular with respect to the design of sub-themes well in advance of the 5th GC, to guide prospective submissions.

Ends.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/4th-global-congress-on-ip-and-the-public-interest-statement-of-conclusion-for-the-ip-and-development-track

4th Annual US - China IP Conference: Best Practices for Innovation and Creativity

praskrishna — 2015-11-29T13:51:15Z

Bhairav Acharya attended this conference organized by Berkeley Law, University of California on October 6, 2015.

WHAT: The 4th Annual U.S.-China IP Conference: Best Practices for Innovation and Creativity

WHEN: Thurs. Oct. 8, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and Fri. Oct. 9, 9:00 a.m.—noon

WHO: Lawyers, government officials, scholars, and corporate counsel from China and U.S.

Participants include:

Chuntian Liu, dean of China Renmin University
Ping Liu, dep. director-general, Music Copyright Society of China
Robert Merges, co-dir. of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology at Berkeley Law
Maria Strong, deputy dir. of the U.S. Copyright Office
Duane Valz, sr. patent counsel, Google

For a full list of speakers and bios, go here.

WHERE: The Claremont Hotel, 41 Tunnel Road, Berkeley, CA 94705.

DETAILS: Last year marked the first in which Chinese investment in the United States—heavily weighted toward technology—exceeded U.S. investment in China. With companies in each country increasingly seeking joint ventures in the other, intellectual property (IP) issues that lie at the core of these investments have taken on even greater importance.

Participants will compare the latest trends and developments in IP creation, protection and cross-border enforcement in China and U.S.

Panel topics include:

Opportunities and Challenges in U.S.-China Film Co-Production and Other Media
New Trends and Legal Issues in Transnational Technology Investment
Specialized IP Courts
Recent Developments in Copyright: Legislation and Cases
Recent Developments in Patents: Legislation and Cases
Cross-border IP Enforcement

For a complete agenda, go here. Read a preview story about the conference here.

Event co-sponsors: The UC Berkeley School of Law’s Berkeley Center for Law & Technology (BCLT); Loyola Law School, Los Angeles; and Renmin University of China Law School.

For more information or to schedule interviews contact: Jim Dempsey, exec. dir. BCLT, 510-643-6960; or Louise Lee, assoc. dir., llee@law.berkeley.edu, 510-642-9353.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/4th-annual-us-china-ip-conference-best-practices-for-innovation-and-creativity

004: A License to Share

nehaa — 2014-03-20T05:38:34Z

In this blogpost Devika Agarwal, a 4th year student at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow, takes a first look at the Creative Commons 4.0 Licence.

With the increasing amount of information being uploaded online every day, it becomes imperative to facilitate the sharing of this information legally. Creative Commons (CC) license is a tool developed especially with the objective of allowing widespread dissemination of information in a manner so as not to infringe the copyright of a person over the work.

A CC license is a valid license. It is ‘non-exclusive’ in nature; this means that the author of a work is free to enter into a different licensing agreement with anybody he wishes despite holding a CC license (the different licensing contracts must also be ‘non-exclusive’ in nature). Simply put, licensees of a CC license will be governed by the terms of the CC license unless they have a different agreement with the license holder.

In India, works licensed under the CC license include digital copies of educational material by NCERT.

With the first version of the license being published in 2002, Creative Commons has witnessed a number of changes to help serve the needs of internet users better. Version 4.0 of the Creative Commons License was released on November 25, 2013.

A more global license

What sets the latest version of the Creative Commons license apart from its precursors is the fact that CC license 4.0 is an ‘international license’. The earlier versions of CC license required the license to be “ported” to the different jurisdictions; ‘porting’ was a process which involved the translation and legal adaptation of CC’s core license suite (also known as ‘generic’ license suite’ ) to conform to the languages and copyright laws of individual jurisdictions). This means that earlier one had to obtain a CC license ported to one’s country; the “ported version of the license” was a modification of the generic CC license, suited to meet the copyright requirements of a particular country.

The CC license 4.0, on the other hand, is an international license, i.e., the 4.0 license is ‘jurisdiction neutral’ in nature and a single version of the license exists for all persons.

Sui generis database rights:

The CC license 4.0 also provides explicitly for protection to sui generis databases in jurisdictions which recognize copyright related to sui generis databases. Sui generis databases were not expressly covered by the earlier versions of the CC license. (India does not extend copyright protection to sui generis databases).

Non-attribution

The one element common to all the CC licenses is ‘attribution’ or acknowledgement of the licensor as the author of the work by “giving appropriate credit and providing a link to the license. Where the earlier licenses provided that a licensor may request a licensee to remove attribution from adaptations of the work (in order to preserve anonymity), the 4.0 license extends the right of ‘non-attribution’ of a licensor to works which have not been adapted.

This right of attribution is recognized under section 57 (1) (a) of The Copyright Act, 1957 in India which states that “even after the assignment either wholly or partially of the said copyright, the author of a work shall have the right to claim authorship of the work.”

30-day period to remedy breach of CC license terms

A significant change in the CC 4.0 version is that unlike the earlier licenses which terminated the CC license in case of failure to comply with the license terms, the 4.0 licenses allow a 30-day period to the licensees to remedy the breach, after which the license shall resume.

The terms incorporated in the 4.0 license are aimed at making the license more compatible with the copyright laws of various jurisdictions and at the same time ensure that information can be shared with more freely, thus preserving the spirit of Access to Knowledge.

(Creative Commons re-launched its India chapter in November last year.)

Similarly, right of ‘non-attribution’ is recognized under section 21 of The Copyright Act, 1957 which provides for relinquishment of copyright by the author. This may be done “by giving notice in the prescribed form to the Registrar of Copyrights or by way of public notice.” A CC license where attribution has been removed at the instance of the licensor will serve as a ‘public notice’.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-license-to-share

3rd International Conference on Management of Intellectual Property Rights and Strategy

praskrishna — 2016-08-02T15:30:19Z

Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, at IIT Bombay, through the MHRD IPR Chair, organized 3rd International Conference on Management of Intellectual Property Rights and Strategy (MIPS) on July 15 and 16, 2016 at National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai. Anubha Sinha was a speaker on the 'Negotiating India's IP Policy" panel.

MIPS is designed to be biennial in order to create and maintain the quality and its high relevance in the years to come. The broad theme for MIPS is "IP for Development: The emerging paradigm". With Make in India, Digital India missions that is driving both the hard and soft aspect of innovations, the focus this time would be "Driving Nation's Competitiveness - The IP Environment and Ecosystem."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/3rd-international-conference-on-management-of-intellectual-property-rights-and-strategy

3rd Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest & Open A.I.R. Conference on Innovation and IP in Africa

praskrishna — 2014-01-05T02:52:03Z

From 9 to 13 December 2013, delegates from national and international governmental governmental entities, the private sector, civil society, and academia gathered for five days of interconnected events in Cape Town.

Sunil Abraham participated as a speaker in the sessions on Bridging into the Global Congress: Global Issues, Local Answers?, User Rights Track: What Medicines Can Teach Tech: Exploring Patent Pooling and Compulsory Licensing in the Indian Mobile Device Market, User Rights Track: Reclaiming the World Trade Organisation: A Modest Proposal for a WTO Agreement on the Supply of Global Public Goods, and was a keynote speaker on The Freedom Continuum. Nehaa Chaudhari also participated in this event. Click to read more about the event published on the website of open A.I.R. here. The full programme can be seen here.

Participants will engage with diverse perspectives and future scenarios for intellectual property (IP), innovation and development during the combined 3rd Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest and Open A.I.R. Conference on Innovation and IP in Africa.

The event is now fully subscribed, with only registrations invited by Congress & Conference organisers being accpted. For further details, please visit this website's Cape Town 2013 page.

The University of Cape Town (UCT) Faculty of Law's IP Unit is serving as host of the Congress & Conference. Implementating partners include the Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) at The American University in Cairo, the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS) at the University of Lagos, the Centre for IP and IT Law (CIPIT) at Srathmore University in Nairobi, the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa and the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property
at American University in Washington, DC.

Congress and Conference funding is being provided by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Open Society Foundations.

Date: Monday, 9 December, 2013 to Friday, 13 December, 2013
Place: Cape Town
Type of Event: Conference

Sunil Abraham provided a hilarious talk on The Freedom Continuum. An example: “Freedom is like the Kama Sutra – there are many positions one can take.” Mr. Abraham also brilliantly suggested a method for plausible deniability in the world of biometric identification and oppressive government oversight. By posting all of my biometric information (fingerprints, eye scans, etc.) on the internet, I can plausibly deny any crimes or contracts or tracking by the government because, well, it’s all online so it couldn’t have been me, right? So we should (paradoxically) fight incursion into data privacy simply by releasing all biometric data about ourselves.

Also quite amusing was the comparison of the IP debate to Tom and Jerry, that iconic Cat (Kat?) and Mouse duo who are perpetually chasing one another. Tom the Cat represents Big Business, corporate interests, the USTR, etc. Tom is chasing (but can never quite catch) Jerry the Mouse, who represents civil society, human rights activists, the open source movement, etc. An audience member pointedly observed that Jerry typically runs around for a bit and then disappears into a hole in the wall, where he stays for some time before emerging to torture Tom again. The obvious point is that activists (i.e., the audience at the Global Congress) will never make substantial progress until they stop disappearing for long periods of time and start acting more like a cat (or even, perhaps, like a dog).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/3rd-global-congress-ip-and-public-interest-open-air-conference-innovation-and-ip-africa

3rd Expert Committee Meeting on reference of secretary, MHRD on representation of Internet and Mobile Association of India

praskrishna — 2016-02-05T14:04:24Z

The 3rd Expert Committee meeting was held on January 11, 2016 in Committee Room No.654, 'A' Wing, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting in New Delhi. Nehaa Chaudhari and Anubha Sinha attended the meeting.

Download the notice.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/3rd-expert-committee-meeting-on-reference-of-secretary-mhrd-on-representation-of-internet-and-mobile-association-of-india

3 Copyright Tips for Students and Educators

subha — 2016-10-07T00:42:06Z

Copyright is a really complicated topic, and when it comes to online use of creative works, accidentally crossing the line between fair use and a copyright violation is easy. How do you know what is copyrighted? Recently Frederico Morando (Creative Commons, Italy) and I presented a training session on understanding copyright policies at Wikimania 2016, which was originally proposed by Wikipedian User:Jim Carter. We covered topics such as fundamentals of copyright, exclusive rights, Berne convention, copyleft, Creative Commons licenses, Public Domain, fair use, and copyfraud.

The blog post was published by Opensource.com on August 16, 2016. This got mentioned in Wikipedia's newsletter "The Signpost". This was mirrored by Wiki Edu on October 5, 2016. The post republished can be read here.

In this article, I'll look at three copyright tips to keep in mind when you're thinking about using content—even for academic purposes— you find online.

1. Most of what you find on the Internet is copyrighted.

Except content that clearly indicates the work is released under a free license, or that the copyright has lapsed and the work is in the Public Domain, you can assume content is not freely/liberally licensed. A few popular free and open licenses include GNU General Public License (GPL), BSD licenses, Apache License, Mozilla Public License, and SIL Open Font License. If a work mentions the license, usually the license is explained or links to terms for using the work. Spending a little time to find out what license the work is under beats spending time and money on a copyright infringement case later.

2. Fair use can be your friend, but not always.

Fair use means you might be permitted to make limited use of a copyrighted work without prior permission from the copyright holder. The fair use policy varies from country to country. As explained in the Stanford University Libraries site, commentary/quotes and criticism, and parody are cases that often fall under fair use.

Wikipedia article images related to recent music albums, movies, and even people who are deceased are used under fair use policy. Click on a recent movie poster appearing in a Wikipedia article and check the copyright section for an example explanation of why the use on Wikipedia qualifies as fair use.

^{Example Wikipedia explanation for fair use of an image.}

Fair use also gives some freedom to scholars to use copyrighted work for academic research. To be in a safe side if you are not sure your use falls under "fair use," reach out to the copyright holder and get formal permission before using their work.

3. search.creativecommons.org helps streamline Creative Commons content searches.

Where do you go to search for images, illustrations, and other content with Creative Commons licensing? Most images turned up using a search engine are copyrighted and not licensed liberally, for example. A better way to search is using search.creativecommons.org.

You can choose Creative Commons-licensed content from several sites, such as Flickr, Google Images, Wikimedia Commons, and Europeana. You can also specify whether you want to use the content for commercial purposes, or to modify, adapt, and build upon work.

^{Image credit likeaduck. CC BY 2.0}

Note that you still will need to check which Creative Commons license the content uses. As explained in an article by Richard Fontana:

The Creative Commons suite includes licenses that implement various policies. Some, like CC BY and CC BY-SA, are normatively consistent with corresponding permissive and copyleft families of free software licenses. Others, however, particularly its “NC” (no commercial use) and “ND” (no derivative works) licenses, are in conflict with basic principles of free software and free culture. I am not alone in lamenting the application of the Creative Commons umbrella brand to cover licenses with such disparate qualities. One consequence has been a general confusing dilution of the meaning of “openness” in the context of cultural works. A more specific problem is the evidence of confusion on the part of content authors interested in applying Creative Commons licenses to their works, and resulting confusion by those interested in making use of such works. Too often a work is labeled as being licensed under “a Creative Commons license”, without specifying accurately, or specifying at all, which free or nonfree policy the author sought to apply.

If you still cannot find content—images, for example—with free licenses, but you find copyrighted content that fits your academic need, you can reach out to the content creator or copyright holder for permission. Often copyright holders allow usage of their work for non-commercial purposes, such as academic research and publication.

Do you have other sources you recommend for finding Creative Commons or Public Domain content? Let us know about your favorite resources in the comments.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/3-copyright-tips-for-students-and-educators

2nd National Language Conference, Bhubaneswar

subha — 2015-04-10T15:23:02Z

Institute of Odia Studies and Research organised 2nd National Language Conference beginning on Monday, March 30, 2015 and ending on April 2, 2015 at the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar. This conference was organised in collaboration with the Department of Tourism and Culture. I presented a paper in Odia language in this conference as part of a panel discussion related to Odia language computing.

I spoke briefly about the issues with Odia being used massively on the Internet and gaining popular with Odia speaking netizens. Odia Wikimedia community and CIS-A2K's efforts has resulted growth in online Odia content. I also shared the potential projects that people could get involved and how collective effort will yield more diversification of the language and its use by today's generation.

The talk is available on Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons Share-Alike 4.0 license.

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/second-national-language-conference-bhubaneswar

2nd Law Economics Policy Conference 2017

Admin — 2017-12-05T14:08:47Z

The 2nd Law Economics Policy Conference is being organized by National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi and Institute for New Economic Thinking, New York from December 4 to 6, 2017 at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi.

Steering Committee

Upma Chawdhry, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration
Rajeev Kapoor, Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals
K. P. Krishnan, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship
Sunanda Nair Bidkar, Institute for New Economic Thinking
Ila Patnaik, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
Rathin Roy, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
Ajay Shah, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
B. N. Srikrishna, Former Judge, Supreme Court of India
Somasekhar Sundaresan, Advocate
Shardul S. Shroff, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas

4 December 2017

Juniper Hall (Entry from Gate No. 1 on Lodhi Road)

19:30 - 22:30	Inauguration and Dinner
	Inaugural Address Amitabh Kant, NITI Aayog

5 December 2017

Juniper Hall (Entry from Gate No. 1 on Lodhi Road)

09:00 - 09:30	Registration and Breakfast
09:30 - 09:45	Opening remarks
09:45 - 11:05	Panel 1: Public Health
	Chairperson: C. K. Mishra, Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change
	Regulating the health profession Shefali Malhotra, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
	Air pollution Shubho Roy, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
	Health system design thinking Nachiket Mor, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
	Panelists
	B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, Government of Chhattisgarh Yamini Aiyar, Centre for Policy Research Sanjay Arte, True North Managers
11:05 - 11:25	Tea/Coffee
11:25 - 12:45	Panel II: Bankruptcy
	Chairperson: Injeti Srinivas, Ministry of Corporate Affairs
	The issues Bhargavi Zaveri, Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research
	Panelists
	Shashank Saksena, Ministry of Finance Suharsh Sinha, AZB & Partners Sumant Prashant, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
12:45 - 13:45	Lunch
13:45 - 14:45	Rule of law and regulation Justice (Retd.) B.N. Srikrishna, Supreme Court of India
14:45 - 16:05	Panel III: Importance of land market for ease of doing business
	Chairperson: Vijay Madan, Ex-Secretary, Department of Land Resources
	Stylised facts on Maharashtra RERA data Sahil Gandhi, Tata Institute of Social Sciences
	Creating an efficient market in land Anirudh Burman, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
	Panelists
	Venkatesh Panchapagesan, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore Barun Mitra, Liberty Institute S. Chockalingam, Government of Maharashtra
16:05 - 16:25	Tea/Coffee
16:25 - 17:45	Panel IV: Technology Policy
	Chairperson: Rajeev Kapoor, Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals
	Current debates in technology policy Smriti Parsheera, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
	Panelists
	Arunabh Choudhary, Juris Corp Parag Kar, Vice President, Qualcomm Sunil Bajpai, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Sunil Abraham, The Centre for Internet and Society S. Ganesh Kumar, Reserve Bank of India

6 December 2017

Juniper Hall (Entry from Gate No. 1 on Lodhi Road)

09:30 - 10:00	Registration and Breakfast
10:00 - 11:30	Panel V: Courts and Tribunals
	Chairperson: Shardul S. Shroff, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas
	The issues Prasanth Regy, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India
	Judicial delay: Informalism as panacea? Anuj Bhuwania, South Asian University
	Panelists
	Anand Prasad, Advocate Somasekhar Sundaresan, Advocate Ritin Rai, Advocate Sanjay Kumar Medhi, Additional Advocate General, Assam
11:30 - 11:50	Tea/Coffee
11:50 - 13:20	Panel VI: Macroeconomic and financial institution building
	Chairperson: Vijay Kelkar, NIPFP
	A progress report Ila Patnaik, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
	Panelists
	U. K. Sinha, Ex-Chairman, Securities and Exchange Board of India Harsh Vardhan, Bain & Company Amit Raje, Goldman Sachs
13:20 - 14:20	Lunch
14:20 - 15:50	Panel VII: Criminal Justice
	Chairperson: Prakash Singh, Police Foundation and Institute
	The issues Renuka Sane, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
	Panelists
	P.C. Haldar, Police Foundation and Institute B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, Government of Chhattisgarh
15:50 - 16:10	Tea/Coffee
16:10 - 17:40	Panel VIII: High performance regulators
	The issues Ajay Shah, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
	A regulator for private skills providers K.P. Krishnan, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship
	Panelists
	Praveen Garg, Ministry of Finance Somasekhar Sundaresan, Advocate Suyash Rai, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
17:40 - 17:50	Summing up Sunanda Nair Bidkar, Institute for New Economic Thinking Ila Patnaik, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/2nd-law-economics-policy-conference-2017