Centre for Internet and Society

34th SCCR: Observer Statements on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives

sinha — 2017-05-30T05:55:43Z

Observers made the following statements on the agenda of limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives on 3rd May 2017.

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA):
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We congratulate you as leaders of body and looks forward to working with you to achieve the goals of the in the interests of the national copyright system. We thank the Secretariat for their hard work and IFLA is proud to have attended sessions of the SCCR for many years and gratified that Member States understand and support the role of libraries, archives and museums in promoting knowledge and the understanding of diverse cultures.

As the U.S. states and its principles document SCCR/26/8, exceptions and limitations facilitate the public service role of libraries and are executives maintaining the balance between the rights of authors and larger public interest, particularly education, research, and access to information that is essential in today's society. But that balance has eroded over time as rights holders have promoted fell ashes notion that copyright is primarily or only about protection of rights not the public good. In a world where information is increasingly borderless, as borderless as broadcast signals, the idea that issues related to access to information are local as one delegate astonishingly stated earlier this week is really incomprehensible and misguided. This is not to say, however, that local or national action is not needed as one element in the equation of access to information. In this limited sense, we agree that the exchange of national experiences in this body over the past several years has been helpful as have been the studies commissioned by WIPO from Professor Kenneth Crews which demonstrated the wide variation in exceptions and limitations existing in SCCR's Member States, including their absence in numerous countries. We applaud WIPO for commissioning these studies and urge that the Secretariat build on the studies produced by professor cruise to develop a regularly updated searchable database of exceptions and limitations for libraries, archives and museums to be accessible across borders so that legislators and citizens who do not attend these sessions can easily learn from other's experience on an ongoing basis. We further recommend that SCCR capitalize on the past sharing of Member States' national experiences and the suggested approaches in the Chair's chart of SCCR/33 by creating a draft law on exceptions and limitations for libraries, archives and museums in collaboration with all stakeholders so that there will be practical outcomes for recent discussions in this body. Such a draft law would draw on the committee's past discussions on the subject but not be binding or prejudice in any way the outcome of the committee's own work. IFLA stands ready to work with its colleagues in the archival and museum communities as well as with rights holders delegates to SCCR and the Secretariat to achieve this objective. As for our recommendations or reactions to the Chair's final chart from SCCR/33, IFLA supports this and we urge the Chair's chart be upped as a working document and certainly to the qua as an outcome of SCCR35. Finally in response to the proposal by the Delegation of Argentina, SCCR/33/4, we hope that the committee will request the Secretariat to prepare a study on issues related to limitations and exceptions for libraries, archives and museums and a cross-border context including digital uses. We are grateful to the Member States that have placed and maintained limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives on the SCCR agenda and look forward to continuing these discussions. These outcomes will affect access to information and knowledge for people throughout the world. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Society of American Archivists:
Thank you, Mr. Chair, I will try to be brief. The Society of American Archivists, North America's largest professional archival organisation looks forward to working with you and your Vice Chairs. Our members manage billions of primary source works from across the global. SAA believes in the importance of WIPO's work because copyright is central to the mission of archivists. Archivists collect and preserve all types of creative works for one reason only, use. Most archived works, however, have never been in commerce, but people globally need them to maintain their culture, identity, protect Human Rights and support innovation through new creative works. If such works cannot be made available digitally, however, and across borders, they might as well not exist. Archivists and librarians are conscientious about copyright, but sometimes strict adherence to the law conflicts with our collections and our mission. For example, a 1970's collection of over 120 interviews of legendary jazz musicians are available for on site study in the archives of the U.S. research library, but, their general usefulness has been hobbled by unbalanced copyright law because the original copyright assignment mentioned neither derivative works nor the yet to be invented Internet. As a result, risk averse librarians and lawyers were unwilling to allow zing tall accessibility of the interviews. Although jazz cannot thrive without taking risks, an archivist's obligation to the future requires that we minimize risk. That's why we need reasonable exceptions to deal with the streams ambiguity inherent in our collections. Copyright is already perceived to be under attack. Can WIPO afford to torn away allies such as archivists? We have a very positive public approval rating from the very people that you need to reach. To keep archivists on board the development of exceptions for archives must remain on SCCR's agenda. To this end the committee's work should continue based on the previous Chair's chart and that chart should become a working document for the committee. Thank you.

Centre for Internet and Society:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. CIS works on issues of access to knowledge and other digital rights in India. I would like to share with you my experience which highlights the difficulty of building digital archives in India. Mr. Chair, earlier last year the government of India embarked upon the important project of digitizing the cultural audiovisual material stored in government and private collections to store material for preservation purposes, and set up a virtual network of these repositories to offer online access. My organization has been assisting them in this crucial public service mission. These works are oral traditions, dance, music, theatrical practices, cultural practices – all of which lie largely inaccessible and languishing in several small and large collections in India. Since, the Indian copyright Act does not contain an exception for the purposes of preservation by an archive; the entire project has suffered high costs in terms of money and time. Money, because the project had to get expensive legal assistance to set up processes to obtain rights clearance from all the performers who were a part of the works and copyright holders- some of which are orphan works, thereby compounding the problem. Further, partnering organizations also expressed legitimate fears of supplying their works, in case of a potential copyright and related rights violation that could implicate them with civil/criminal liability.

In such a scenario, for the benefit of other states to update their standards corresponding to this international legal instrument as well, it would indeed be useful to adopt the proposals mentioned in the document SCCR/26/3 that address these issues, and others. Thank you.

International Council of Archives:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And the ICA congratulates you on your election and that of your Vice Chairs and we look forward to working with you. Archival institutions exist throughout the world. Governments, organisations and individuals create records to provide evidence of their actions to document their rights and obligations and to preserve their heritage. Archives acquire and preserve these documents and make them available for all to use as the raw materials for cultural, academic, social and scientific research. The nature of archival material presents a particular problem. Archives hold billions of copyright works that were not created or intended for commercial purposes. Because they were never published, the rights holders for such works cannot be located. For these reasons, collective licensing is not a workable solution. The archival mission to make their holdings available for research is ham strung by a web of inconsistent copyright laws that have failed to keep up with social and technological development. In this body systemic discussion of the eleven topics, archivists provided a rich array of real life examples that clearly demonstrate the need for exceptions, for mutual recognition by Member States of exceptions and limitations to copyright that would permit archives everywhere to serve an international audience. The results of that excellent work was summarized in the Chair's informal chart on limitations, exceptions for libraries and archives. Every creator benefits from the work of his or her predecessors. Knowledge of that earlier work comes largely from libraries and archives. Many of the rights holders represented in this room could not have created their works without us. Why would creators not wholeheartedly support exceptions for archives and libraries that would only benefit their work. Regrettably, we continue to hear assertions from some groups that national solutions are suffer. It should be abundantly clear by now that national solutions are far from sufficient. We need solutions that apply in a global network environment. And in that regard, Mr. Chair, the Chair's informal chart on limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives prepared at the end of SCCR33 refined and clarified the topics to be addressed and provides a practical approach to continue to move this initiative forward. We would support our IFLA colleagues called to have it adopted as a working document of the committee, and we would also support IFLA's call for a study of cross-border issues. Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

German Library Association:
I congratulate you on your election as a Chair and I speak on behalf of German Library Association representing 10,000 libraries in Germany. Libraries and archives face a problem. There is a high level of the international copyright protection, on the other hand, there is no such uniformity in limitations. Limitations like the ones fixed in the already mentioned Chair's informal chart, for example, for preservation, lending, document delivery, are the basis of library services. But limitations and exceptions are like a patchwork of different national legislations. For every library service crossing borders that means to act legally library staff has to know about the limitations and exceptions not only in their own country, country of origin but also in the country of destination of that service. Respective to the German library index and university libraries in 2016 around 60% of the acquisitions were electronic in technical universities the portion of electronic acquisitions is even much higher. These numbers in international comparison are even low. We can assert that research libraries are digital more than they are paper based. In the electronic world, the problem is resources usually are only available after agreement on license stipulations formulated by the rights holders mostly. That means contracts are concluded. Contracts eventually can override the limitations and exceptions. This committee might agree on in one form or the other. The objective of facilitating cross-border library teaching and research services could be achieved by introducing an international mandatory instrument on limitations and exceptions. Another track to facilitate cross-border use could be the introduction of principles of harmonizations combined with a rule of mutual recognitions like proposed in the document of the Delegation of Argentina. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

International Federation of Journalists:
The International Federation of Journalists congratulates, again, the Chair and Vice Chairs on their election and the members of the Secretariat for their diligent work. We represent about 600,000 journalists in 140 countries worldwide north and south. The International Federation of Journalists, of course, understands ts essential role of libraries and archives specifically we fully support them having the freedom to have copies for preservation. The International Federation of Journalists has repeatedly called for libraries and archives to have proper direct funding to do this themselves and not to be forced to subcontract digital archiving to commercial operations. The honorable representative of Brazil referred earlier this morning to the potential to extend the outreach of libraries and archives in unprecedents ways.. Of course, this, the making of works available on the Internet, for example, and on its successes is an important supplement to the vital role of libraries and archives in the education and training of many including journalists. But when it comes to libraries and are executives making copies of works available off the premises, that is is it not, a publishing operation? The International Federation of Journalists believes that the solution to this issue is collective licensing and necessarily capacity building to insure that efficient Democratically controlled collective licensing is available in all Member States and can deal with cross-border issues as the collective licenses that already exist already do. Many of those 600,000 journalists particularly those who focus on international reporting are poorly paid. Where there is such collective licensing it makes important contribution to their economic survival as independent professionals with their own essential contribution to make to the recording and preservation of our culture from within our cultures and not relying on foreign reporting. Thank you.

Knowledge Ecology International:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and congratulations for your election. And for your Co-Chairs'. One thing I just wanted to mention as related to libraries is in addition to the excellent studies that have been done by Kenneth Crews and other people that have looked at library exceptions, I thought it might be interesting to have the chief economist or other people involved, but certainly the chief economist to look at the economics of the library industry. I think that we look at libraries as part of the research and development infrastructure for a country, not only as places people go to read novels, but an essential part of the competitiveness and ability for a country to have a strong high tech sector but also play an important role in the development. And it would be interesting to know what the assessment is because we hear it from other industries all of the time. They talk about the number of jobs in the film industry or the number of jobs. It would be interesting to know how many people are employed in different countries in the library sector, but also what contributions the library sector makes to the economic development of the country, and what challenges they face on pricing. The last point I wanted to make is that clearly there is a set of issues that it's really hard to reach on census on, and there is other areas where it's easier, I would think, to reach consensus on. This discussion of the archiving and the preservation of documents is a pretty good case. Certainly the making available of what's put into, what's archived and preserved in terms of documents, it's more challenging to reach consensus on that than it is to insure that people have adequate exceptions to merely do archiving and preservations. And I think that it would be unfortunate if in looking at their wide range of issues that are facing libraries, recognizing that there is a very inadequate set of exceptions in many countries according to the studies that have already been done, that people don't move forward in areas where consensus could be reached such as preservation and archiving because there are other areas that are more controversial. Thank you.

Electronic Information for Libraries:
Thank you, Chairman. I'm speaking on behalf of the Electronic Information for Libraries and I would like to thank you for giving me the floor and congratulate you upon your election to Chair this committee. I would also like to congratulate your Vice Chairs. We would like to thank the African Group, GRULAC, Asia-Pacific Group and the other delegates for having spoken of the interrelationship between the Sustainable Development Goals and the establishment of access to libraries and archives because emphasis is placed on access to information. Ladies and gentlemen, the Internet is global, but legislation on copyright stops at borders and that is why we are here today. Digital technology has changed the world, which people have access to information. Today the way we study and learn in fact means that people do not have full access. We believe that copyright is important, and that limitations and exceptions are crucial for a modern information infrastructure as well as for open access and other licensin wills. We are very pleased that other countries have modified proposals on copyright.. We are pleased that some countries have expanded their exceptions or introduced new ones. However, some countries who are updating their law are not enough to resolve a broader problem, the demand for cross-border access to information for research and culture. And the need to insure that nobody is left behind in access to knowledge means that there is say need for this aspect to be taken into account. There are specific issues which were compiled in a document and submitted to this committee and I would like to invite you to read it. There are printed copies available, but it can also be found on line. It begins with the Internet is global. We also support IFLA's and ICAS interventions and we hope that progress will be made swiftly in the SCCR in this issue. We thank you very much for your attention.

International Council of museums (ICOM):
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for this opportunity to address this important agenda item.. The international Council of museums represents important 36,000 museum professionals world wide. We are here, Mr. Chair, to give our voice to museum professionals for this important agenda item. After consultation with the international museum community and in keeping with the results of the WIPO study on exceptions and limitations on copyright for museums ICOM joined forces with our library and archive colleagues to pursue exceptions to copyright for the benefit of libraries, archives and museums as enumerated in the Chair's informal chart that provide for exceptions for all three. This pursuit is not intended to disrupt markets, but instead is targeted to instances where museums and indeed libraries and archives are unable to carry out their often shared mission. ICOM was very pleased that the Canadian delegation called for a museum study in 2013 while at the 26th session of the Standing Committee on copyright and related rights. The study on exceptions first draft was distributed and presented at the 30th session of the SCCR in 2015. The study distributed business WIPO provides a broad basis of understanding of the status of exceptions for museums within WIPO Member States and provides for the basis for ICOM's continued advocacy of exceptions for museums. The purpose of our intervention today is to signal that ICOM is committed to the belief that a harmonized approach towards libraries, archives and museums is both possible and necessary to achieve the overall objective of obtaining operational exceptions for materials and cultural heritage collections at the international level. [..] there are many instances where museums, libraries and archives cross mandates given the nature of distinctive collections. Libraries hold collections that include artifacts more traditionally aligned with museum collections or have accessioned collections that include unpublished materials often found in archives. Museums hold archival collections, have libraries within museums, and include study collections as part of their overall collections. Museums like archives nay oftentimes include a vast array of artifacts in their collections and include materials that have often been published and unpublished. At the same time, libraries, archives and museums face the same obstacles created by copyright law in trying to fulfill their respective missions being education, public interest, access to collections and communication of scholarship. This is particularly true when museums are examined not simply as stewards of art collections but as stewards of historic scientific and natural collections as well. The similarities are in fact magnified when we examine the collections we face with our 20th century collections. Museums, libraries and archives face similar challenges in preserving, exhibiting and providing access and communicating about art collections. Thank you, Mr. Chair for the opportunity to address this important issue.

European Bureau of library, information and documentation associations:
Mr. Chair, we congratulate you and the Vice Chairs on your elections to office, and thank you for inviting the European Bureau of library information and documentation associations which is the voice of libraries in Europe to take the floor. The consolidated libraries and archives studies in the SCCR30 and the museum study both from 2015 reveal that the national frontier-based approach to copyright with regard to libraries, archives and museums now in disarray, too disparate and stuck in the pre-Internet era. In the E.U. this has been the justification of proposal of mandatory cross-border exceptions to copyright. Yet in face of the ever expanding world wide web. National copyright laws are in need of constant modernization to allow institutions to function optimally in an international cross-border online environment. Now that the detailed discussion of the topic has been summarized by the previous Chair's SCCR/33 document. We offer practical suggestions for moving forward. First, we suggest that this committee establishes the principles to inclusion in the note for overarching international copyright framework for copyright exceptions and limitations affecting libraries, archives and museums. The proposals made by the US delegation in 26/8 offer useful guidance that can shape the content of the committee's work. A comprehensive and effective solution for libraries should set standard for and protect national copyright exceptions that impact on the functions of these institutions, including preservation of materials and content, copying for document delivery in any format including cross-borders. Lending of works including remotely. Protecting limitations and exceptions for override by contract terms and by holding partially inaccessible can due to legal protections of TPMs. Making orphan works available on line to the public, text and data mining of legally accessed coven tent. Acquiring work including by importation and protecting libraries, archives and museums and staff accounting for them in good faith for criminal or civil liability for unintended copyright infringement. There are various ways in which the committee can support work. And could be usefully adopted by this committee. Secondly, in line with the EU's call for guidance to Member States, we would welcome efforts from the Secretariat to further inform our discussions. In line with the Poe proposal from Argentina which correctly addresses the need for minimum set of exceptions and limitations nationally and the solution for cross-border issues this what the E.U. itself is seeking to do domestically. We would welcome a study on cross-border issue as a basis for further discussion. In order to provide further guidance to Member States, this committee could request the Secretariat to convene an expert group first and foremost of library archive and museum copyright experts as well as copyright academics, lawyers and relevant stakeholders to support the commissioning and tasking of an agreed expert to develop modern WIPO draft law for libraries, archives and museums. Finally this committee might wish to request that the Secretariat provides a useful tool to assist its work by creating online publicly accessible database of copyright exceptions and limitations. Additionally since the pace of change in copyright law affecting the library, archive and museum sector is to fast moving the committee might request an annual report from the Secretariat of changes to nationals and practices in copyright and related rights. Thank you for your attention.

Innovarte Corporacion:
Thank you very much, Chairman. We would like to congratulate you upon your election. We would like to thank the excellent work on studies on libraries and archives. The proposal to work with the aim of a treaty on exceptions and limitations to copyright to protect the balance and legitimacy of the system for copyright and related rights with regard to libraries and people with disabilities is something we have been discussing in this committee since 2004 starting from a proposal which came from Chile. As discussions of the Marrakesh Treaty has shown that provisions on copyright to protect categories of people who are threatened or under mined by a lack of exceptions is not only possible but good and it shows a means to protect libraries, archives and possibly also museums. In this regard, we would like to request the members of the committee in good faith to consolidate all of the work done based on the text which has already been considered, the informal summary of the Chair of the committee as we have seen it's based on textual proposals either for treaty or another form of instrument which was proposed by various delegations including Brazil, India, the United States and many others. We propose that the committee would adopt this text without any prejudice to what form the work might take in the future. We believe on another point that the proposal from Argentina is particularly useful since it seeks to come up with a solution to the obstacle, namely, the lack of harmonization of rules on libraries and archives at international level. We believe it is a compliment to what has already been worked on by the committee with regard to principles and topics which are necessary for exceptions other than a national level. It should be subject to greater analysis by this committee, thank you very much.

Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Thank you Mr. Chair. The EFF work supports the work of libraries and archives which have become more relevant in the digital age and which are more challenging now. The updating of exceptions and limitations are an important way to insure that libraries and archives are equipped to meet these two challenges of fulfilling missions in the digital age. In an ideal world EFF sees norm setting as the only way to ensure that WIPO members provide a basic level of modernized limitations and exceptions for libraries, however, we recognize that members do not have the appetite for norm setting in this area at this point in time for various reasons. In that light, we do support the proposal IFLA has made for a draft law and searchable database on library limitations and exceptions. This strikes us as a workable compromise that does not commit members to hard norm setting but which would be a useful interim step towards the harmonization of limitations and exceptions for libraries worldwide. Finally and on a different topic, I would like to express EFF's hope that in the next SCCR session time will also be made available for NGOs to make statements about the broadcast treaty. Thank you very much.

Note: Source of the statement texts are WIPO's realtime transcription service.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/34th-sccr-observer-statements-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives

34th SCCR: Observer Statements on Limitations and Exceptions for Educational and Research Institutions

sinha — 2017-05-30T05:51:42Z

Observers made the following statements on discussion around limitations and exceptions for educational and research institutions on 3rd May 2017.

Communia:

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to address for the limitations and exceptions for educational purposes. I would like to give a brief statement that by saying Professor Seng's studies, national countries had exceptions narrowly in various ways the copyright works of educational activities. These narrow exceptions prevent certain educational practices such as the quotation of entire image in a school presentation. When it comes to modern educational practices, namely those that occur in digital and online teaching environments, the legal standing is even more problematic. Indeed, certain acts which teachers are allowed to perform in face-to-face teaching may not be permitted in digital and online contexts. For instance, in the Netherlands, the law is clear that a teacher can show a movie from a DVD in class, but if the same teacher wants to show a video from a free publicly accessible website, it seems that you'll need to be -- you will not be able to do it. This is due either to inappropriate legislative techniques or to domestic policy decisions. In any case, what is certain is cross-border educational uses are compromised at the outset due to the current national copyright laws, including within regions that enjoy a high level of harmonization, such as the European Union. Therefore, continue to discuss this issue in the forum which we will lead toward from an internationally binding instrument as mandated by the General Assembly 2017 seems essential. Thank you.

International Federation of Journalists:

Good afternoon. We've already introduced ourselves. All these works are and remain one of the key raw materials for education. The international federation of journalists deeply regrets the educational and research institutions underfunded. No one is proposing, however, as far as I'm aware, that schools and colleges should get free electricity or free phone calls. Here, most clearly of all, the solution is collective licensing through collective management organizations that are democratically controlled by the rights holders they represent. There is a wealth of misunderstanding of the issues. I take as one example the very first statement on a pro education site and the magic of Internet indexing may enable you to identify it, are which demonstrates how ill thought out the costs of education can be, not withstanding the previous. This is addressed to the European Union. It says, quotes, we want you to have the freedom to teach without breaking the law. Good. Quotes, before teaching her students about how representations of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet have changed through the ages, a teacher may have to ask permission from the rights holders of every movie she wants to screen in class, unquote. It says, this is -- we want to relieve educators from this impossible task, but I'm aware of nowhere in the European Union and few countries in the -- what we're pleased to call the more advanced economies where this is an impossible task. The school just pays for a license from a collecting society and goes ahead with no further administration. In my home country, United Kingdom, the collecting societies are working successfully on streamlining the system of licensing and making it more efficient in time and cash. Personally, I do recognize that some categories of textbooks are overpriced...(Speaker went over time and was asked to stop).

International Authors Federation:

Thank you very much. As this is the first time the International Office Forum has taken the floor this session, we'd like to congratulate you, Chair, and your vice chairs on your election and thank the Secretariat on their work. The international authors forum represents authors from the text, screenwriting, and visual arts sectors and their interests in copyright, as members of 60 organizations representing well over 600,000 authors worldwide. In ran increasingly homogenized world, cultural diversity is important, authors maintain that in digital arts, literatures, language, and music. It is the authors works being considered in the proposals being discussed at WIPO. There are individual authors whose rights are involved in all countries. Those rights must be given primary consideration. They need fair remuneration if they are to continue the work everybody wants access to. Without payment, they will not be able to continue to create. The diversity and quality of content will suffer and the quantity of works produce produced will be limited. We believe that there are already international copyright provisions in place that work well to enable the development of licensing frameworks, which enable access, including cross-border access provision through educational institutions and ensure fair payment. Authors believe that these existing provisions contain sufficient flexibility for countries represented at WIPO to continue to work towards national solutions, such as licensing frameworks, which can be developed according to local needs. Thank you for your time.

Corporacion Innovarte:

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The study of exceptions for educational limitations in current legislation shows that there is a fragmentation, that it's not appropriate to the countries, and very often this is an insolvable problem for international and learning cooperation in the area of communication. In order to overcome these, we think it's ins dispensable to have an international agreement which will enable us to have a minimum of common exceptions and limitations which will make it possible to have compatible roles for cross-border use of educational resources. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Programme on Information Justice and IP:

Thank you, Chair. You and I are from countries that have educational exceptions that are open to the use of any work, for any education related activity or purpose, and by any user — subject to a fairness test that takes into account the rights of authors and rights holders. This openness in the exceptions environment enables innovations that promote access to learning materials, including through new technologies and over the internet. Tomorrow at a side meeting over lunch, Communia and American University will be presenting the outcomes of different research projects that examine the operation of user rights in practice. That research shows that wealthy countries are developing openness in these factors much more quickly and thoroughly than poorer countries currently. But the research also shows that this is not a developing country problem alone. Many wealthy countries as well lack exceptions that allow such basic practices as showing a movie, streaming a video or performing a play in a classroom setting. These problems are compounded when we deliver educational products across borders through distance learning. A lack of harmonization on these issues will produce a race to the bottom where teachers like myself are forced to not deliver the best materials possible for our students because of the lack of rights to do so in some countries.I would encourage the process going forward to focus on the value of educational exceptions that
cover all:

Works,
Apply to all users, and that
Extend to a full range of activities

Thank you.

Note: Source of the statement texts are WIPO's realtime transcription service.

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34th SCCR: Observer Statements on Proposal for Analysis of Copyright related to the Digital Environment

sinha — 2017-05-30T05:39:22Z

Observers made the following statements on GRULAC's proposal on analysis of copyright related to the digital environment on 5th May 2017. CISAC:

Thank you, Chairman. I'd like to thank the WIPO Secretariat for this initiative because I think it can contribute to a constructive discussion in this committee on a number of issues raised in the document proposed by GRULAC. CISAC would like to thank the two professors on their presentations on the work done in April, and we look forward in great interest to the presentation of the conclusions at the next meeting of SCCR in November. (CISAC) we have a number of -- I'd like to refer to the need to the transfer of values. The greatest challenge -- which is the greatest challenge facing creators, and then there's the changing role of Internet service providers. As very often the authors are marginalized by the digital economy and the value chain. And then the comments about the need to interpret WIPO treaties in the most faithful way possible to the original spirit and also prudence in implementing exceptions and limitations using other alternatives where possible, such as licenses. Thank you.

FILE:
Thank you, Chairman, and I congratulate you and your vice chairs on your guidance at this meeting, and I associate myself with these statements made by -- the statements made by states such as the USA, E.U.. I'd also like to congratulate GRULAC on this proposal and recommend the committee, in the face of all these studies, which are very interesting, that we performers believe there are priorities, including, for example, the very low or zero remuneration being paid to authors for our works and our performances on Internet in the digital environment, and so we would, therefore, recommend that mainly this study should focus on that and the GRULAC proposal should be a permanent item on the agenda, and as regards the discussion of the legal systems used -- so this should be included and also the three conclusions reached by the professor should be included on the agenda of this committee. And in all this, the market is developing so rapidly, so we should invent our norms as quickly as possible so that we can compete on an equal footing, on a level playing field in this market. Thank you.

Knowledge Ecology International:
Thank you very much. I was -- like others, we'd like to take a harder look at the study. One observation I would make is in the original GRULAC proposal, looming large were issues about economics, concentration of ownership in the area of distributing works, questions about the fairness of the distribution of revenue between creative people and distributors of works. I think in some ways that what was described as the study, although it looked very competent and a great cast of characters in terms of the researchers, I would -- I think you may want to examine whether there's more economics or economists that can be brought in to shed more light on the issues raised in the initial paper. And the last thing I wanted to say is we're -- and we've talked to some Delegates about this, or actually, I should say they've talked to us about it and we agree, that the issue of metadata as it relates to digital works is really a new topic that has come about because of the digitalization of works and the development of the Internet. We often feel that the metadata's managed on behalf of right owners but not necessarily on behalf of either the creative individuals or the audiences or the readers or the listeners, and so I think this is a -- related to the GRULAC proposal. It may be a subset, but I also think it's a topic that we would like to see explored more. Thank you very much.

PAAIG:
Thank you, Chair. I would like to focus on the role of limitations and exceptions in the digital environment for the priority of the committee at this time. There's things called non expressive uses, uses that are necessary for technological processes but do not compete with the copyright owner necessary to offer the services and Internet offer over it. We have been doing research on this topic and have been doing studies that suggest the presence of such exceptions is related to investment in growth of local digital technologies. We cannot have streaming without buffering, we can't have artificial intelligence, machine learning, text and data mining, Internet-based translation services without the right to use whole works for purposes that do not compete with the original, but only a small number of countries around the world provide these clear limitations and exceptions, and the lack of those limitations and exceptions is reducing local investment and local innovation in this area. As the experts note, the E.U. has taken a step in the right direction in this regard, creating a mandatory exception for certain technological processes in the directive. That model's not perfect. Many of these digital innovations that I mention actually require permanent copies. Nonetheless, the concept that we need a mandatory exception in this regard that can facilitate cross-border digital trade and local production and innovation should guide this committee. Thank you.

Corporacion Innovarte:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We're grateful for the work done by the Secretariat on this topic, as also the explanations from the professors that gave us their opinions. We think that the issue of guaranteeing fair remuneration for creators is extremely important. This item should be considered as a standing item on the committee's agenda. However, we also wanted to hearken back to what El Salvador said; in other words, there should be more participation and transparency in the work done in the group of experts in order to guarantee that all of the concerns and issues are covered that are related to this work. Finally, as to the checklists on contracts, this should include not just intermediary platforms such as YouTube, but also contracts between authors and producers or collective entities which also should be a subject of interest for this committee. Thank you.

Latin Artists:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Latin artists represents associations of actors and other performers in the audiovisual field. We are grateful for looking at the precarious situation of artists and other creators in connection with the use of their performances in the digital era. This was described, effectively, by GRULAC in its proposal. This affects not only musical work but audiovisual works as clarified by the Delegation of Brazil at the last session of this committee, and despite the fact that the same Delegation has referred exclusively today to music. In this situation, we think that the solution is not just exploratory studies, as we heard this morning. We also need to bear in mind that this scope exceeds the specific problems indicated in the GRULAC proposal, more particularly in the need to find appropriate formulas to guarantee that artists and other creators can benefit from the economic content of their performances in the digital era; in other words, formulas that guarantee that artists and authors can have fair remuneration in online use of their interpretation and performance and works. From this viewpoint, we think in the framework of the study we have to look not just at computers or databases. This can simply distract us from the questions we have before us, something that seems to be of concern to certain Delegations, as was expressed this very morning. In fact, ultimately, sir, if the debate that took place at the last session of this committee focused on the proposal of GRULAC, the study should focus exclusively on the problems identified in that proposal. That is all. At any rate, we are attentive to the conclusions which we hope will be reached and presented at the next session of this committee, and we hope that they will foster a debate that can no longer be delayed. Artists and authors need solutions. With all due respect, we cannot allow this time wastage to take place. We need an equitable sharing and the economic benefits derived from the digital use of their interpretations and works. Lastly, Latin artists understands that this question should be a standing independent item on the agenda of the committee. Thank you very much.

LCA:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to echo the statement of El Salvador and the United States that it will be very helpful to have written conclusions of the experts in advance so that we can react to them intelligently. Also, I would like to agree with the United States that the committee should focus on copyright issues and not more abstract market issues. If we start focusing on issues like the value gap, we also need to consider the value to authors of the free global distribution provided by Internet platforms. Thank you.

AADI:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of the general association of performers and collective management of related rights of musical performers in the Republic of Argentina, I should like to congratulate you on your appointment as Chairman of this committee as also your new vice chairs. We wish them every success in their work with the cooperation of the Secretariat and the Delegations of the countries making up this committee. I have no doubt that you will have a successful outcome. Also, I'd like to congratulate professors to thank them for both of their presentations and also the Secretariat for its necessary and positive work to bring information to us. Since the first time that the GRULAC brought a document forward has welcomed this discussion. This was an informed document made available in December 2015 by the Delegation of Brazil. At that time and today, apart from a legal solution for each country, that has found four questions on this item, the document is 31/4, which plays a major role placing on the agenda the issue of performers' rights in a digital era to make the possible damage visible to them that are suffered by performers and artists as also to make it obvious who has caused this damage; in other words, major musical production companies. We have made this public and we have fought for obligatory reflective remuneration for artists and performers in my country. I would like to point out today we are not the only ones to have this stance. We have the extraordinary of Filia, which is a Latin America company of artists and performers, which stated at its annual meeting in October 2016, it is important for document SCCR/31/4, which proposes an analysis of copyright in the digital age to be made visible and to make obvious the various difficulties encountered as also to enable our artists to consolidate their work. I do not wish to dwell on these matters further, but I must say that on a daily basis, I see how major corporations make huge profits at the expense of performers. Is this some kind of a joke? But what we need is actions from whatever quarter can prevent their action and promote our action as performers in the digital era. Thank you.

Centre for Internet and Society:
Thank you Mr. Chair. On behalf of CIS, it is my submission that the study can additionally focus on all the key actors along the entire supply and value chain involved in content dissemination in the digital environment, complementing the study of the legal environments. This would shed considerable light on national legal frameworks and also provide us evidence of transparency, or the lack thereof in the businesses involved and the extent of low proportions of copyright and related rights payment to the creators and their unfair treatment. Thank you.

Electronic Information for Libraries:

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There were very many proposals on the interest of libraries, including the management of copyright limitations and exceptions in the digital environment, digital exhaustion, licenses, territoriality, and the interpretation of the three-step test. I'd like to thank the two professors for their presentations. We'd be very interested in the findings with regard to the review of copyright laws for digital uses that was dealt with at the start of the presentation. When we looked at data from the Crews study on limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives, we found that in countries that have amended their copyright laws in the last five years, digital copying is expressly barred in over 1/3 of them, even for preservation reasons. My question is are you also considering in the work the evidence and examples of problems experienced by beneficiaries of certain exceptions, such as the library and archive community, when working in the digital environment, as presented to this committee by the community over the last number of years? That would help to further inform the discussion and the possible conclusions. Thank you.

Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property:
I would like to support that aspect of the GRUAC proposal that focuses on the role of limitations and exceptions in the digital environment as a top priority for this committee.
There is an increasing recognition that so-called non-expressive uses – uses necessary for technological processes that do not compete with the copyright owner – are necessary to enable the internet and the services that are offered over it.
We at American university have been doing studies that suggest that the presence of open exceptions for technological processes isrelated to investment and growth of local digital technologies. Countries with more open exceptions do better at attracting investments in fields such as software engineering. We cannot have local streaming services without local buffering rights. We cannot have local search, artificial intelligence, machine learning, text and data mining, and internet based translation services without local rights to use whole works for purposes that do not compete with the original.
Only a small number of countries around the world provide the clear limitations and exceptions in these areas. And only a small number of countries have robust industries in related fields. But all these services are international by nature, and therefore the lack of harmonization of enabling rights is increasingly perceived as a barrier to trade.
As the experts note, the EU has taken a step in the right direction that can serve as a model in this regard – creating a mandatory exception for certain technological uses in the INFOSOC directive.
That model is not perfect. Many digital innovations I have mentioned use entire works on a basis that might not be viewed as temporary. Nonetheless, the concept that we need a mandatory exception in this regard to facilitate cross border digital trade is salient, and should guide this committee.
Thank you.

Note: Source of the statement texts are WIPO's realtime transcription service.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/34th-sccr-observer-statements-on-proposal-for-analysis-of-copyright-related-to-the-digital-environment

Train The Trainer 2017

Manasa Rao — 2017-06-07T08:43:19Z

The Centre for Internet and Society’s Access to Knowledge program conducted its annual flagship event, Train The Trainer(TTT), between 19 to 22 February, 2017 at Jayamahal Palace, Bengaluru. The three day residential workshop focussed on training participants to develop the skills and attributes required for conducting events and outreach activities while also, eventually, taking on leadership roles within their respective language communities. The aim of the program is to groom such leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community members. 19 participants from nine different language communities from the Indian subcontinent attended the workshop.

The pre-event session on the evening of the 19th consisted of fun games for participants to break the ice and get to know one another. As the evening wound down, the participants, who were invited to bring sweets and savouries from their cities and towns, set up a sweets table. This activity was inspired from Wikimedia Deutschland's candy table at Wikimedia Conference 2015. The idea is to hold an exciting sweet tasting session as the participants attend the workshop. Participants enthusiastically shared trivia about the delicacies they brought to the event and exchanged notes on the various recipes.

Sweets table at TTT 2017/ Image By Manasa Rao/ CC-BY-SA 4.0

Day 1: Introductory discussions, event planning & WikiConference India case study

The first day of the workshop started with a welcome address from the organisers and a formal introductory session for all those present. The participants introduced themselves and spoke about the one Wikipedian they are most inspired by. This was a platform for both participants and organisers to understand each other and their motivation to be a part of the free knowledge movement. Participants also shared the nature of their work on Wikimedia and their pet projects. Most importantly, they spoke about the challenges they have overcome in their journey as a Wikipedian. Pabitra Kumar Panda(User:pkp05) of Odia Wikipedia spoke about how he began editing Wikipedia on his phone using public hotspots in his city(Puri). “I love editing Wikipedia so much that I used to sit for hours together and edit on the street using the wi-fi available. I completely lost track of time,” he said. Another participant, Sumita Roy(User: Sumita Roy Dutta), spoke of how she learned to combine her love for trekking and Wikipedia. She uploads extensively categorised photos on Wikimedia Commons from every trek in order to help potential trekkers or travellers who may wander off the beaten path in the Himalayas.

The interaction gradually transitioned into an activity where participants were asked to present their expectations over the next few days and for the year ahead. Participants were divided into five groups with one CIS-A2K team member at each table to facilitate discussions or clarify doubts. Sanskrit Wikipedian Sidharth Dhodapkar(User:Siddharthdhodapkar) pointed out that while focussing on language communities is important, general outreach activities should also be conducted simultaneously so as to not miss out languages like Sanskrit that are rarely spoken today. Suyash Dwivedi(User:Suyash.dwivedi), an active contributor to Wikimedia Commons, stated that the need of the hour was localisation of global best practices that serve as a guideline for volunteers across Indic language Wikipedias.

Participants presenting their group projects/ Image By Indrajit Das/ CC-BY-SA 3.0

Notably, many participants brought up the need for a more concentrated Wikipedia effort in the domain of education in India. Paramjit Singh(User:param munde), a school teacher from Punjab explained how his students would stand to benefit from a reliable learning platform available online. “We need to explore ways by which we can convert Wikipedia articles into basic educational resources at the school level, keeping Indic languages in mind,” he said. Frederick Noronha(User:Fredericknoronha), a journalist from Panaji and English Wikipedia contributor, urged the participants to tap into digital resources already made available by the National Council of Educational Research and Training. Adding to that, Dr. Manavpreet Kaur, Punjabi Wikipedian and forensic scientist, said that students can be taught animal kingdoms, for example, with the help of “Categories” (of photos) on Wikimedia Commons. Reiterating the need for expert knowledge on subjects, Ramakrishna Reddy Palagiri(User: Palagiri) pointed out that these subject expert articles must be translated across the Indic language Wikipedias. These interactions helped the CIS-A2K team understand the various ways in which we can expand our support providing infrastructure to the Indic language communities.

The first master class session began with CIS-A2K team members, Tanveer Hasan and Tito Dutta, talking about Wikimedia Foundation grants. They elaborated on the two types of grants offered by WMF: individual grants and grants for groups and organisations. They answered questions about the practical nature of processing the grants and the expenses covered by these grants. Participants seemed most interested in the procedure of applying to and receiving the Rapid Project Grant that is commonly requested for edit-a-thons, contests, equipments and events, with a funding of USD 1500- 2000 approximately.

This was followed by a session on “Essentials of Conducting an Event” by long time Wikipedian (Retd.) Col. Ashwin Baindur. The session mapped the connect between the spirit of conducting an event and the logistical challenges trainers and volunteers must be prepared to face. He pointed out that professional administrative support and preparedness leads to Wikipedians feeling a sense of purpose. He related a quote from his personal experience and said, “the more you sweat in peace(i.e.planning and preparation), the less you bleed in war(i.e. the actual event). Participants were glad the presentation touched upon new topics such as generating enthusiasm through pre-work, dividing participants into groups so as to facilitate healthy exchanges and following up with sharing of the event’s documentary resources and feedback.

The day came to an end with Dr. Manavpreet Kaur’s presentation on WikiConference India. She put forth a case study on how they prepared for and conducted the pan India event in 2016. This presentation went through the administrative process and challenges as well as tips that helped conduct such a large scale conference.

Day 2: Excursion to Cubbon Park & the Wikipedian’s ethos

Participants at Cubbon Park/ Image By Manasa Rao/ CC-BY-SA 4.0

The second day involved an excursion for the participants who were geared up to go to Cubbon Park, Bangalore. This was a nature walk conducted by long time Wikipedian, Shyamal Lakshminarayan(User:Shyamal). The organic discussions that took place during the excursion surrounded conducting photo-thons and GLAM activities that drew on local heritage and biodiversity. The participants visited the Government Museum near the park and Shyamal explained the importance of knowing about the available resources of knowledge for every Wikipedian. “It’s cheaper to put wrong information on the web, so physically visiting libraries to find relevant information will help you judge the credibility of a source,” he said. At the late afternoon session back at the conference venue, participants were introduced to the Internet Archive while Col. Baindur helped the participants understand easy reference templates. Participants were even taught hacks that they could use to cultivate new editors. For example, while uploading Commons images with different categories is important, someone who doesn’t know how to do it may still upload the images with the basic categories so that other users may add detailed categories. A new Wikimedian may initially find this useful as he/she is learning the ropes. Reflecting on the morning’s excursion, the participants were encouraged to ponder on the more philosophical question: how does knowledge on Wikipedia reflect the reality around us?

Day 3: Global Initiatives, Gender Gap Bridging on Indic Wikipedias & Feedback

The final day of Train The Trainer 2017 began with a masterclass on global initiatives that the participants could learn from and adapt to their communities. Some of the methodologies for improving community consultation were discussed such as needs assessment, outreach activities and surveys. The participants (who would all ideally be prepared to take on the role of trainers) were introduced to Learning Patterns and how they could document the lessons they have learned regardless of the outcome of their event. Another global strategy, global engagement, was also discussed in detail. Participants were asked to make the fullest use of traditional and social media in promoting their events, whether online or offline. Participants were introduced to Share-A-Fact, an inbuilt option on the Wikipedia mobile application which allows the sharing of any sentence or phrase as per the reader’s choice from a Wikipedia article onto any social media or email application. This is imposed over a photo from the article along with a link to the article itself. Participants who were active on social media pointed out that the social media handle of CIS-A2K team had shared these quick facts during the excursion the previous day.

Ravi Ayakannu conducting a session on photo contests/ Image By Indrajit Das/ CC-BY-SA 3.0

Following this, Ravi Ayakannu, long time Tamil Wikipedia community member held a session on conducting photo contests such as Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Food. He explained that these are held online and help keep the volunteers motivated without requiring their physical presence. Mr. Ayakannu advised the participants to be inclusive in their approach to awarding best photos such as awards for diversity, creativity, etc. He suggested that organisers must give themselves ample time before adjudging the photos and the organisers could involve someone from Commons. "These contests would also get professional non-Wikimedian photographers involved and hence produce high quality images", he added. For promoting the photo contest, Mr. Ayakannu suggested site banners on Wikipedia.

The final session of the workshop was on Wikipedia and Women. Ting Yi Chang, CIS-A2K research intern, working on exploring ways to bridge the gender gap on Indian Wikipedias conducted the session. Participants were introduced to global initiatives for bridging both the women-related content and male to female editor ratio gap on Wikipedia. While speaking on her soon to be published gender gap bridging toolkit(inspired by User:Keilana's Systemic bias kit) for Indic Wikipedias, Ting Yi noted, "women are not periphery subjects and we must avoid treating it as such." Participants appeared interested to learn about projects such as Women in Red that makes an effort to add women-related content on Wikipedia. The session also reminded participants to organize community events during commemorative events such as Women's History Month in March. The following are a few global initiatives on Gender Gap Bridging:

1. Women's History Month

2. Art and Feminism

3. Wiki Women's User Group

The session was followed by activities that were aimed at sensitizing the participants and urging them to think critically on issues they could potentially face as organizers, both on and off wiki, regarding the participation of women or women-related content. The session came to an end with a free-wheeling discussion among participants about the various scenarios, biases and mindsets they need to be aware of while attempting to bridge the gender gap on Wikipedia and related projects.

As the three day event drew to a close, the participants shared some of their key takeaways and follow-up action points which included cross-community collaborations and mentorship at least at the regional level, encouraging informal/ semi-formal opportunities for community members to mingle and share their ideas with one another among others.

To watch videos of the event, please click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/train-the-trainer-2017

May 2017 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2017-06-17T02:46:03Z

Welcome to the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) newsletter for May 2017.

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
CIS compiled a report that highlighted four government projects run by various government departments that have made sensitive personal financial information and Aadhaar numbers public on the project websites. Article 19 had put out a call for applications for its Internet of Rights Fellowship in February 2017. Vidushi Marda was selected for Internet of Rights Fellowship. CIS gave inputs on a document on implementing digital accessibility to Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on May 2, 2017. The 34th session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) was held in Geneva from May 1 to 5, 2017. Anubha Sinha participated in the event and a summary report is available here. She made statements on behalf of CIS on the Discussion on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives and on the Proposal for Analysis of Copyright Related to the Digital Environment. CIS-A2K’s widely well-regarded flagship skill building program, Train The Trainer and MediaWiki Training was conducted in Kolkata earlier this year. Tito Dutta captured the developments in a blog post. Although it has made the topographic maps or the Open Series Maps available to general public, Survey of India’s (SoI) Nakshe portal will have to go through a variety of litmus test, as the initiative fails to implement the mandates of public sharing of government data using open standards and open license as put forward by the NMP 2005 and NDSAP 2012, said Sumandro Chattapadhyay in an interview with Geospatial World on May 02, 2017. In an interview with nettime.org, Geert Lovink discussed with Ramesh Srinivasan Tech Anthropology Today and "how can we embrace the realities of communities too-often relegated to the margins". In an article published in the Business Standard on May 3, 2017, Shyam Ponappa examined whether policies can be better framed to harness the market potential. Why is so much investment flowing into India's securities markets?

CIS in the news:

130 Million Aadhaar Numbers Were Made Public, Says New Report (The Wire; May 1, 2017 and MensXP.com; May 5, 2017).
Aadhaar Details Of 13.5 Crore People Available On Government Sites (Mahima Kapoor; Bloomberg Quint; May 2, 2017).
Aadhaar numbers of 135 mn may have leaked, claims CIS report (Press Trust of India; May 2, 2017).
Details of 135 million Aadhaar card holders may have leaked, claims CIS report (Hindustan Times; May 2, 2017).
UIDAI remains silent on #Aadhaarleaks of 13 crore users through government portals (Shruti Menon; Newslaundry; May 2, 2017).
১৩ কোটি আধার তথ্য ফাঁস চার সরকারি পোর্টাল থেকে! বিস্ফোরক দাবি রিপোর্টে (Amar Bazar Patrika; May 2, 2017).
13 crore Aadhaar numbers on four government websites compromised: Report (Akram Mohammed; New Indian Express; May 2, 2017).
Aadhaar numbers of 135 mn may have leaked, claims CIS report (DNA; May 2, 2017).
Biggest blast on Aadhaar leak so far: govt sites leaked data of 13 crore people (Jikku Varghese Jacob; Manorama; May 2, 2017).
Around 13 crore Aadhaar numbers easily available on government portals, says report (Scroll.in; May 2, 2017).
What privacy? 13 crore Aadhaar numbers accessible on government portals (Anusha Ravi; Oneindia; May 2, 2017).
Govt may have made 135 million Aadhaar numbers public: CIS report (Komal Gupta; Livemint; May 2, 2017).
Aadhaar numbers of 135 mn may have leaked, claims CIS report (The Times of India; May 2, 2017)
Aadhaar data leaks not from UIDAI: Centre (Krishnadas Rajagopal; Hindu; May 3, 2017).
135 MEELLION Indian government payment card details leaked (Richard Chirgwin; The Register; May 3, 2017).
Aadhaar data of over 13 crore people exposed: New report (Indian Express; May 3, 2017).
In The Biggest Data Leak, Info Of 13 Crore Aadhaar Card Holders Has Been Compromised And Is Available Online (Bobins Abraham; The Times of India; May 3, 2017).
Around 130-135M Aadhaar Numbers published on 4 sites alone (Nikhil Pahwa; Medianama; May 4, 2017).
Aadhaar's the largest biometric database globally but it is leaky by design (Rohith Jyotish; Global Voices; May 2, 2017 and Business Standard; May 5, 2017).
Why Aadhaar leaks should worry you, and is biometrics really safe? (Rakesh Mehar; Newsminute; May 4, 2017).
Indian Government says it is still drafting privacy law, but doesn’t give timelines (Vivek Pai; Medianama; May 4, 2017).
आधार नंबर, नाम, पता, बैंक अकाउंट और दूसरी संवेदनशील जानकारियां लीक: CIS रिपोर्ट (Aaj Tak; May 4, 2017).
With digitisation at the forefront, government departments need to be cautious about digital security (Manas Pratap Singh; NDTV; May 4, 2017).
Kashmir: Telecom firms struggle to block 22 banned social media sites (Aijaz Hussain; Livemint; May 4, 2017).
Aadhaar data of 130 millions, bank account details leaked from govt websites: Report (India Today; May 4, 2017).
Aadhaar: Are a billion identities at risk on India's biometric database (Soutik Biswas; BBC News; May 4, 2017 and Rawlson King; Biometric Update.com; May 5, 2017).
135 million aadhaar details, 100 million bank accounts "leaked" from government websites: Researchers (Counterview; May 5, 2017).
Suicide videos: Facebook beefs up team to monitor content (Kim Arora; The Times of India; May 5, 2017).
Aadhaar assurances fail to assuage privacy concerns (Anirban Sen; Livemint; May 5, 2017).
A 13-year-old's rape in TN highlights the major threat online sexual grooming poses to children (Priyanka Thirumurthy; May 6, 2017).
Experts stress on need for enhanced security (New Indian Express; May 6, 2017).
Taking Cognisance of the Deeply Flawed System That Is Aadhaar (Shreyashi Roy; Wire; May 10, 2017).
Plug data leak before imposing Aadhaar (Deccan Herald; May 11, 2017).
Aadhaar data leak: Take precautions while sharing info on websites, MEITy tells all depts (Indian Express; May 11, 2017).
Aadhaar security: Here's how your private information can be protected (Sanjay Kumar Singh; Business Standard; May 11, 2017).
Online Trolls Attack Critics of India's Aadhaar State ID System (Rohith Jyothish; Global Voices; May 31, 2017).
India is building a biometric database for 1.3 billion people — and enrollment is mandatory (Shashank Bengali; Los Angeles Times; May 12, 2017).
Watch: Aadhaar has become a whipping boy: Nandan Nilekani (Alnoor Peermohamed and Raghu Krishnan; Business Standard; May 13, 2017).
Partnership on AI Adds Corporate, NGO Members, Charts Initial Course (Benjamin Romano; Xconomy; May 16, 2017).
WannaCry: ATMs not to shut down, clarifies RBI, but how safe are our machines? (Soumya Chatterjee; May 16, 2017).
Google, Facebook's AI group adds new members (Jens Meyer; Axios; May 16, 2017).
22 companies join Partnership on AI, begin to study AI's impact on work and society (Alison DeNisco; TechRepublic; May 17, 2017).
Intel, Salesforce, eBay, Sony and others join the grand AI partnership club (CIOL; May 17, 2017).
IT companies in Bengaluru on high alert over WannaCry ransomware (Kiran Parashar K M & Shruthi H M; New Indian Express; May 17, 2017).
Partnership on AI adds new organizations to its network (Madison Moore; Software Development Times; May 17, 2017).
Intel, eBay, SAP, Salesforce y Sony colaborarán en inteligencia artificial (Monica Tilves; Silicon; May 17, 2017).
22 nieuwe leden voor Partnership on AI (Telecom Paper; May 17, 2017).
Provide hacker details, outfit that claimed data leak told (Mahendra Singh; The Times of India; May 18, 2017).
UIDAI asks Centre for Internet & Society to provide hacker details (Mahendra Singh; Economic Times; May 18, 2017).
Hack exposes Zomato's weak protection of customer data, say Cyber experts (Alnoor Peermohamed; Business Standard; May 19, 2017).
What’s Hard To Digest About The Zomato Hacking (Aayush Ailawadi; Bloomberg Quint; May 19, 2017).
UIDAI puts posers to CIS over Aadhaar data leak claim (Press Trust of India and Financial Express; May 19, 2017).
Faking it on WhatsApp: How India's favourite messaging app is turning into a rumour mill (Samarth Bansal; Hindustan Times; May 19, 2017).
Debate over #Aadhaar Turns Nasty as Critics Accuse Supporters of Online Trolling (Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprahasta; The Wire; May 19, 2017).
Hacker steals 17 million Zomato users’ data, briefly puts it on dark web (Kim Arora and Digbijay Mishra with inputs from Ranjani Ayyar; The Times of India; May 19, 2017).
UIDAI goes after org that disclosed government departments were releasing Aadhaar data (Nikhil Pahwa; May 19, 2017).
Developer releases WannaCry key-recovery tool for Windows XP (Cirilo Laguardia; Hoyen TV; May 20, 2017).
Will Aadhaar leaks be used as an excuse to shut out scrutiny of welfare schemes? (Anumeha Yadav; Scroll.in; May 20, 2017).
Microsoft says WannaCry ransomware must be a wake-up call for governments (Journaldu Maghreb; May 20, 2017).
Noida cyber cell gives tips on preventing WannaCry attack (Juana McKenzie; World News Journal; May 20, 2017).
Chinese state media says U.S. should take some blame for cyber attack (Ellis Neal; Villages Suntimes; May 21, 2017).
Zomato hack: You need to enhance online security with a password manager (Sanjay Kumar Singh; Business Standard; May 23, 2017).
Sharad Sharma Apologises for Trolling Aadhaar Critics; Unmasking Ispirit's Controversial Trolling Program (Shweta Modgil; Inc 42; May 23, 2017).
iSpirt's Sharad Sharma: Sorry, I trolled Aadhaar critics (Shalina Pillai and Anand J; The Times of India; May 24, 2017).
Sharad Sharma's case shows how rampant troll culture has become under Modi (Catch News; May 25, 2017).
Aadhaar Card: One Identity, Multiple Disorders (Gaurav Raj; India Saga; May 25, 2017).
Tweets from the afterlife (Heena Khandelwal; DNA; May 28, 2017).
BBMP faces ire for publishing pourakarmikas' Aadhaar details on website (Bharat Joshi; Economic Times; May 29, 2017).

CIS members wrote the following articles

Aadhaar Case: Beyond Privacy, An Issue of Bodily Integrity (Amber Sinha and Aradhya Sethia; Quint; May 1, 2017).
Digital native: Free speech? You must be joking! (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; May 14, 2017).
Digital native: Look before you (digitally) leap (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; May 28, 2017).

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Accessibility & Inclusion
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India has an estimated 70 million persons with disabilities who don't have access to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. As part of our endeavour to make available accessible content for persons with disabilities, we are developing a text-to-speech software in 15 languages with support from the Hans Foundation. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

Submission

Comments on the draft Policy on IT Accessibility for People with Disabilities (Nirmita Narasimhan; May 19, 2017).

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Access to Knowledge
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Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Copyright

Blog Entries

34th SCCR: A Summary Report (Anubha Sinha; May 15, 2017).
34th SCCR: CIS Statement on the Proposal for Analysis of Copyright Related to the Digital Environment (Anubha Sinha; May 15, 2017).
34th SCCR: CIS Statement on the Discussion on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (Anubha Sinha; May 15, 2017).
34th SCCR: Observer Statements on Proposal for Analysis of Copyright related to the Digital Environment (Anubha Sinha; May 30, 2017).
34th SCCR: Observer Statements on Limitations and Exceptions for Educational and Research Institutions (Anubha Sinha; May 30, 2017).
34th SCCR: Observer Statements on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (Anubha Sinha; May 30, 2017).

Participation in Event

Fixing Copyright for Education (SCCR34 Side Event) (Hosted by Communia, EIFL, Creative Commons, and PIJIP; May 5, 2017). Anubha Sinha was a speaker.

►Wikipedia

As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Blog Entries

Wiki Loves Mayabazaar (Pavan Santhosh; May 1, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia Symposium at Gokhale Institute Of Politics & Economics (Subodh Kulkarni; May 1, 2017).
Digitisation, Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource Orientation Workshop at Vigyan Ashram, Pabal, Pune District (Subodh Kulkarni; May 4, 2017).
Thematic Edit-a-thon at J.P.Naik Centre for Education & Development, Pune (Subodh Kulkarni; May 10, 2017).
Train The Trainer 2017 (Manasa Rao; May 10, 2017).
Continuing community engagement: Communities of interest and Quarrying (Manasa Rao; May 19, 2017).
Preliminary research result on Wikipedia gender gap in India (Ting-Yi Chang; May 22, 2017).
MediaWiki Training 2017 (Tito Dutta and Ananth Subray; May 23, 2017).
Mini TTT and MWT held in Kolkata (Tito Dutta; May 23, 2017).

Note: The workshops for the above blog posts were held earlier but the reports were published during the month of May.

►Openness

Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.

Blog Entry

SoI’s Open Series Maps Fails to Implement Public Sharing of Govt Data (Geospatial World; May 4, 2017). Sumandro Chattapadhyay was interviewed.

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Internet Governance
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As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.

►Freedom of Speech and Expression

Submission

Comments from the Centre for Internet and Society on Renewal of .NET Registry Agreement (Vidushi Marda with inputs from Pranesh Prakash and Sunil Abraham; May 31, 2017).

Event Organized

Communication Design and Visualising Information (CIS, Bengaluru; May 5, 2017). Saumyaa conducted a session on the broad principles of communication design and visualising information.

Participation in Events

World Press Freedom Day 2017 (UNESCO and the Digital Empowerment Foundation; New Delhi; May 3, 2017). Udbhav Tiwari participated in the event.
Consilience 2017 - A Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Law (Organized by National Law School of India University; May 20, 2017). Vidushi Marda was a panelist.

►Privacy

Submission

Comments on the Statistical Disclosure Control Report (Srinivs Kodali and Amber Sinha; May 2, 2017).

Blog Entry

(Updated) Information Security Practices of Aadhaar (or lack thereof): A documentation of public availability of Aadhaar Numbers with sensitive personal financial information (Amber Sinha and Srinivas Kodali; May 1, 2017).

Events Organized

Stand Shielded of Digital Rights (CIS; New Delhi; May 5, 2017). Amutha Arunachalam gave a talk.
Meeting on Proactive Disclosure and Personal Data (CIS; New Delhi; May 13, 2017).

Participation in Events

4th National Standards Conclave Evolving a Comprehensive National Strategy for Standards Sectoral and Regional Inclusiveness (Organized by Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Confederation of Indian Industry; May 1 - 2, 2017).
Stockholm Internet Forum 2017 (Organized by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency; Stockholm; May 15 to 18, 2017). Elonnai Hickok was a panelist in the session, "Private sector and civil society collaboration to advance freedom online".
Open house on information breaches (Organized by Has Geek; Bengaluru; May 26, 2017). Udbhav Tiwari was a speaker.
T20 Germany and Beyond: Digital Economy (Organized by GIZ and EPF; May 29 - 30, 2017). Elonnai Hickok participated in a round-table discussion.

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Telecom
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CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Newspaper Column

Policies to Sustain India's Market (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; May 3, 2017 and Organizing India Blogspot; May 4, 2017).

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Researchers at Work
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The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Blog Entry

Tech Anthropology Today: Collaborate, Rather than Fetishize from Afar (Geert Lovink and Ramesh Srinivasan; nettime.org; May 16, 2017).

Participation in Event

Consultative Meeting for a Digital Archive Lab (Organized by Ambedkar University, New Delhi; May 20, 2017). P.P. Sneha participated in the meeting.

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About CIS
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The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

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

► Request for Collaboration

We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at tanveer@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/may-2017-newsletter

Digitisation, Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource Orientation Workshop at Vigyan Ashram, Pabal, Pune District

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-06-07T08:37:48Z

A digitization workshop was held at Vigyan Ashram, following the success of the introductory workshop in February.

On 5 February, an introductory Wikipedia orientation program was held in partnership with Vigyan Ashram, for 15 youths from Pabal and surrounding villages in Shirur, Maharashtra. Given the keen interest and enthusiasm of the participants, a follow up workshop was held on 3 April, 2017.

This workshop was attended by 30 participants who were trained on Wikimedia projects such as Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource. They were given an orientation on digitization and OCR tools as well. The workshop aims to enable the training of resource persons who can go onto be employed at libraries and museums in order to help with their digitization efforts. The scanning of old encyclopedias in Marathi has also been proposed for the Wiktionary project.

Participants were taught how to upload books from the Internet Archive to Wikimedia Commons. Subsequently,there was also a demonstration of transferring books from Commons to Wikisource. There are two ways of doing this: the page by page OCR process or converting a complete book through OCR4Wikisource. As OCRS4Wikisource program runs only on Linux, limitation of machines at the event was a hurdle in providing all the participants a hands on experience. Therefore, the scanning activity could not be completed.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/digitisation-wikimedia-commons-and-wikisource-orientation-workshop-at-vigyan-ashram-pabal-pune-district

Marathi Wikipedia Symposium at Gokhale Institute Of Politics & Economics

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-06-07T08:45:18Z

A strategic symposium on Marathi Wikipedia and its sister projects was conducted on 29 April, 2017

The Marathi Wikipedia community held a symposium at the Gokhale Instititute of Politics and Economics on 29 April, 2017. This was an attempt to bring together various stakeholders for developing a strategic plan for Marathi language wiki projects such as Wikipedia, and especially Marathi Wikisource and Wiktionary. Over 70 persons were involved in the strategic planning efforts to take Wikisource and Wiktionary to existing Marathi Wikipedians and the general public at large. Eminent ecologist, Prof. Madhav Gadgil served as a resource persons for this event.

Gokhale Institute Of Politics & Economics and Rawat's Nature Academy took lead in organising this symposium. CIS-A2K facilitated the process. A total of 50 eminent personalities from various fields such as literature, linguistics, journalism, science forums, publishers, librarians, State Language & Culture Department honchos, active citizen forums working on different issues etc. took active part in the proceedings. They aim to act as anchors in future. According to the needs of Wikimedia projects, 12 Action Groups have been formed. Planning further sessions for May and June has begun over a common email thread.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/marathi-wikipedia-symposium-at-gokhale-institute-of-politics-economics

Thematic Edit-a-thon at J.P.Naik Centre for Education & Development, Pune

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-06-07T08:59:43Z

A Marathi Wikipedia workshop was held at the J.P. Naik Centre for Education and Development in Pune recently.

A Marathi Wikipedia workshop was conducted in conjunction with VIgyan Ashram, a social work organization on 9 May, 2017. This was held at the J.P. Naik Centre for Education and Development. Vigyan Ashram conducts courses on Introduction to Basic Technology (IBT) or Multi Skill Foundation Course in various schools for integrating socially useful productive work with school curriculum. The goal of Wikipedia edit-a-thon was to attempt to integrate these objectives with Wikipedia Education Program and develop long term strategies. It also aims to build resources in the field of appropriate rural technologies on Marathi Wikipedia and equip its participants with the skills necessary to contribute to Wikipedia.

A total of 23 IBT coordinators from 18 schools(of 9 districts) participated in the workshop.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/thematic-edit-a-thon-at-j-p-naik-centre-for-education-development-pune

Project Tiger 2.0 utilisation certificate

A2K — 2020-09-23T23:40:44Z

Project Tiger 2.0 utilisation certificate

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/project-tiger-2-0-utilisation-certificate

Mapping GLAM in Maharashtra

Subodh Kulkarni — 2021-05-15T12:30:59Z

This is a short study on mapping the digital transition in selected Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) institutions in Maharashtra, India, and exploring possibilities and challenges for collaborations with Wikimedia projects. Research was undertaken by Aaryaa Joshi, Dnyanada Gadre-Phadke, Kalyani Kotkar and Subodh Kulkarni; the report has been authored by Subodh Kulkarni with editorial oversight and support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and external review by Sumandro Chattapadhyay. This is part of a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2019–2020.

Introduction

The digital turn has been an important development for the cultural heritage sector in India, especially in the last decade, where access to internet and multimedia technologies has led to several advancements in the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) space. This has also encouraged a multiplicity of uses of cultural content in diverse contexts. Several efforts have been undertaken in this space over the last decade, including state initiatives like the National Museum Collections digital repository, archival efforts at universities such as Jadavpur University and private and individual initiatives such as the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) and Indiancine.ma. Apart from developments in preservation, curation and content sharing there remain continued concerns related to access, infrastructure and linguistic barriers in this sector. Intellectual property rights, open access and privacy issues have also emerged as important issues for cultural institutions looking to open up their collections to a wider public.

Collaboration with open knowledge production spaces like Wikimedia and OpenGLAM then offer important insights into possibilities now available with the digital turn for better public access to cultural content, but also in terms of the development of collaborative archival efforts. Efforts such as GLAM-Wiki have been crucial in bridging the gap between cultural institutions and initiatives in the free knowledge movement. There is still however lack of documentation and research on the various kinds of existing collections and archival efforts afoot in India, and how they may benefit from better access through platforms like Wikimedia. This study maps a few of such GLAM institutions in Maharashtra, India, and reviews their collections, challenges and limitations to explore possibilities for better collaboration between cultural and public memory institutions through GLAM-Wiki initiatives.

Research Questions and Method

The study was framed by the following questions:

How has the digital transition in the GLAM sector in Maharashtra, India, impacted the process of creation and access to cultural content?
What are possible collaborations with open knowledge efforts like GLAM-Wiki?

The mapping of GLAM institutions was undertaken through questionnaires/surveys conducted with six GLAM institutions working in Pune district and one in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra state. The institutions were identified through existing networks established by Subodh Kulkarni, CIS-A2K Programme Officer associated with Wikimedia projects working in this area and snowball sampling. The questionnaires were focused on the nature, objective and scope of the collections, funding, provenance, offline and online workflows (including acquiring, preservation, accessioning, digitisation and metadata standards), human resources, infrastructure, IPR policies and public outreach efforts. The questionnaires were administered with the help of the Programme Officer and volunteers working in this language community. The questionnaire with Marathi translation is given in Annexure I.

The mapping helped to produce a set of recommendations for possible GLAM-Wiki collaborations in the Indian context. This was done through field visits to these institutions, review of the material, and interviews with key resource persons (administrators, faculty and students, archivists, librarians, developers etc.) who manage the collections of cultural content.

The following seven GLAM institutions were visited during the period November 2019 to February 2020. Further visits were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Three Wikimedians — User:ज्ञानदा गद्रे-फडके, User:आर्या जोशी & User:कल्याणी कोतकर uploaded images of these collections on Wikimedia Commons, and added/expanded five related articles on Marathi Wikipedia — राजा दिनकर केळकर संग्रहालय, पुणे नगर वाचन मंदिर, सार्वजनिक वाचनालय, राजगुरुनगर, and आपटे वाचन मंदिर.

Observations about Research Method

The study was done with the help of three active Wikimedians, Aaryaa Joshi (Username:आर्या जोशी), Dnyanada Gadre-Phadke (Username:ज्ञानदा गद्रे-फडके) & Kalyani Kotkar (Username:कल्याणी कोतकर) interested in GLAM related activities. The questionnaire was developed with their participation. Orientation sessions were conducted to discuss the research design, process and outputs. The potential areas for bringing content into various Wikimedia projects were explained. While these Wikimedians conducted the visits for this mapping voluntarily, the actual expenses on travel, refreshments etc. were reimbursed. These volunteers had to carve out time slots from their regular jobs to complete the task. The timings at institutions and availability of key persons also needed to be considered while planning the visits. Sometimes the volunteers had to take leave from their regular work, which also led to some difficulties.

The first visit was to establish an association with the institution and the persons. The meeting with the authorities at the institution was essential to get the consent forms signed and complete other such formalities, including permissions to conduct interviews. This process delayed the work slightly, but is an important learning in terms of the need to establish a rapport with institutions for such research. The questionnaire was translated into Marathi (the local language) to facilitate the discussions. It was felt that to cover the basic aspects of the collections at an institution, at least 4–5 visits are required with a little gap between visits. This regular frequency will help to build relationships as well as maintain the work flow. The sample size for the present study was small due to some unforeseen constraints such as getting enough number of interested volunteer Wikimedians to undertake some of the research, multiple visits required for each institution which extended the duration of fieldwork, lack of positive responses from the GLAM institutions as well as eventual restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Survey of GLAM in Maharashtra

To identify the major institutions in Maharashtra and prepare the list of major GLAM institutions in the state, various government and private official websites as well as publications were studied. It was realised that no website or publication has created a comprehensive district or statewide list of institutions. Information about a few institutions is available online, but these are helpful largely from a tourism point of view. There is no proper selection or thematic categorisation which considers researchers, students, or other communities of interest. The popular tourist routes are given importance. Therefore, there is a need to document all the GLAMs category-wise on platforms freely accessible to the public. Some of the websites are listed in Annexure II .

Description of Surveyed Institutions

Apte Vachan Mandir, Ichalkaranji

Art Gallery at Apte Vachan Mandir, Ichalkaranji. By ज्ञानदा गद्रे-फडके, Art gallery at Apte vachan mandir, Ichalkaranji, CC BY-SA 4.0

Apte Vachan Mandir is a 150 year old library in a small city named Ichalkaranji in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra. The authorities are very cooperative and eager to start digitization of the old/rare books and art gallery. They also need help regarding digitisation and preservation of the century old paintings. The institute is ready to scan the books if equipment and training is provided to their staff. The officials have given the list of 400+ rare books which they are planning to digitise. The official communication has started with the secretary of the institution. The further process stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Iravati Karve Anthropological Museum, Pune

Iravati Karve Anthropological Museum is located in the Savitribai Phule Pune University campus, Pune. The initial visit was conducted and permission was sought for further documentation. The curator and authorities have extended all possible cooperation regarding open knowledge access to the museum collections urther visits could not be undertaken due to the restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Joshi’s Museum of Miniature Railways

Joshi’s Museum of Miniature Railways was founded in 1998 by B. S. Joshi in Pune city. It houses different models of trains, railway stations, tracks with signals, bridges, streets in the cities, circus etc. Light and sound shows are also arranged here. This is a unique collection in India. One can get an experience of scientific concepts, handicraft, technology, history, amusement related artifacts at one place. The authorities of this museum do not feel the need of digitization as it is a live show which gives the best experience. However the documentation of the development process regarding railway models present in the museum is important. They wish to increase the outreach through publicity of the museum on free knowledge platforms to attract visitors to increase the footfall. As it is a privately owned museum, it is getting difficult to maintain it or add new things to it. So, there is scope for some kind of engagement with this museum.

Museum in College of Military Engineering, Pune

College of Military Engineering is a premier institute for army training in India established in 1943. The museum houses vintage engineering equipment from the pre-World War I era, which is displayed over a large landscape. The archives of the corps are also maintained in the library section. Permission for an initial visit was received late due to administrative procedures. Further visits for interviews with the key officials were planned but cancelled due to the lockdown following the COVID-19 pandemic. But there is scope to document the rare machinery, engineering structures, military vehicles etc. as it is openly accessible to the public. The institute is also keen to spread this knowledge to young generations.

Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir

Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir Library. By दिपक कोतकर, पुणे नगर वाचन मंदिर ग्रंथालय 4, CC BY-SA 4.0

Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir is a historic library in Pune founded in 1848. The library houses a rich collection with rare books in various languages from the 17th century. It also possesses historical manuscripts and valuable diaries. The library management is very up to date on new developments in the field and has already adopted web technologies for catering to members. The catalogues are made available online in Koha. They have started digitisation efforts to some extent but need inputs and support. The authorities are eager to collaborate on larger projects to make their resources freely available. The authorities are ready to give the database of books for further integration with Wikimedia projects.

Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum

Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum was founded in 1920 by Dinkar Kelkar in Pune city. This museum houses 22,000 rare artifacts from different historical times. The thematic galleries have been developed thoughtfully. The museum has published 8 catalogues on these themes. More details of this museum can be seen on the official website.

Mastani Mahal restored at Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum,Pune. By आर्या जोशी, मस्तानी महाल, CC BY-SA 4.0

This museum is partially funded by the State Government for some regular maintenance. The funds for development, upgradation, conservation and promotion are to be raised by the institution. A digitisation project has been planned by the museum authorities, and it is progressing as the resources are being arranged. The museum officials are open to share information digitally in the public domain. They believe that they can reach interested masses through Wikimedia Projects. They have given permission to photograph the objects and the various conservation practices in their laboratory. They have expressed their readiness to give free access to libraries and museums for Wikimedians visiting the institution for purposes of research.

Rajgurunagar Public Library, Rajgurunagar

Rajgurunagar Public Library is a 150 plus year old Public access library with a competitive examination center. The special features are rare books from the 19th century and manuscripts. The management was not aware of Wikimedia projects, Open source cataloging, Unicode data entry systems etc. But after the visit, the officials responded very positively to start digitisation of 25 rare books in collaboration with the Access to Knowledge programme, Centre for Internet and Society and Vigyan Ashram, Pabal. The task was completed and these books were digitised and uploaded on Wikimedia Commons by creating a separate category. As the manuscripts and other material is getting degenerated, this collection needs to be digitised at the earliest.

Observations

Target audience

The GLAM institutions, especially museums and libraries are facing a decrease in footfall in recent times. The officials feel that uploading material on the web under free licenses will further aid this trend. At the same time they also express their interest and ideas to attract a new generation to engage with these collections through promotional mobile apps. There are however persistent anxieties about public access to these materials on the web. Some institutions possess unique or rare material such as antiquities, manuscripts, live models or books. The officials fear that the institutions will lose their points of attraction if they are projected on the web with descriptions. On the other hand, the researchers and interested communities are unaware of such treasures with these institutions.

Sustainability

Sustenance of the institutions is another important point and obstacle in digitisation of collections. The publications of the museums are a source of revenue for them. As the entry fees or subscription charges need to be kept minimal for the visitors, the priced material sold at the counters is the only income source for these institutions. Hence, there is a limitation of online availability and promotion of this material. Finding a sustainable model which also allows for open access to content is a difficult task for a large number of organisations. The financial support to these institutions is not a priority area for Government agencies or philanthropic organisations. Some institutions have successfully attempted for corporate social responsibility (CSR) funding. They need professional inputs for fundraising campaigns.

Technical challenges

There are also technical challenges with the digitisation process itself. Some of the libraries have not adopted a universal cataloging system. Therefore it is difficult to analyse the data of books according to copyright status and physical conditions. The authorities are eager to dispose of decaying material after digitisation. Some of them have approached State Government departments for funds but got no response. This may be because standard digitisation policies are not in place at a national level, and a lot of institutions are unaware of existing benchmarks and policies. Another hindrance is that the books will not be permitted to be taken outside the institution for scanning because of the physical condition. Awareness and training in archival and records management is a key requirement in these conditions.

Capacity building

The awareness and capacity building of the personnel at the institutions in the area of free knowledge and digitisation skills is to be enhanced before starting any project. The terminologies and case studies of some projects in local languages are necessary for better understanding of concepts as well as best practices. Some of the good archive projects in Marathi completed by various organisations include digitisation of the complete works of Vinoba Bhave, Prabodhankar Thakeray and Vinayak Savarkar. The language department of the State Government of Maharashtra has also digitised and uploaded 129 old books and 555 old magazines on their website. The other website of the literature & culture department has made available 434 books in PDF, epub and mobi format.

Recommendations

These recommendations are based on the interactions with the Wikimedians involved in the process, the interviews with key persons from seven GLAM institutions and previous experiences of working with such institutions. The important learnings from this research study are captured in the observations stated above. As the focus of the discussions remained limited to the access to cultural content and possible collaborations regarding Wikimedia Projects, the content creation aspect was not touched upon in detail. The recommendations emerging from this study provide some guidelines for action points for the near future. However, for designing broader strategies for the GLAM sector, a sizable number of institutions in different regions of the state need to be mapped to provide a more comprehensive picture of the sector and its possibilities

The recommendations regarding various stakeholders in the mapping process are stipulated below -

For Wikimedians

Orientation sessions for Wikimedians visiting the institute regarding GLAM related Wikimedia projects, copyright issues, Creative commons licenses and basics of library science should be conducted. The availability of resource material on these topics in local languages will be useful in the interview process.
For replicating this mapping activity across one state or several states, the selection of Wikimedia volunteers is crucial. The provision for reasonable honorarium per visit should be made for time bound as well as qualitative execution of tasks.

For GLAM institutions

It was observed that the GLAM institutions are not well aware about the free knowledge platforms like Wikimedia projects or Internet archive. They are aware about copyright and intellectual property rights, but not about Creative Commons or other licenses available. They wish to make their resources available across the world but are not clear about the methods. The collaboration regarding these aspects is highly appreciated.
Old libraries have a good collection of rare old books. They are finding difficulties in preservation of books as well as facing space constraints. Also for these books, readership is also negligible. Hence there is a need to digitise this valuable reference material before it degenerates.

For CIS (or other implementing agency)

A comprehensive list of GLAM institutions in the state, with further categorisation into geographical & thematic aspects is to be developed and be made freely accessible for the public at large.
Training in universal metadata structures and unicode systems like Koha is to be arranged for the staff and management members at these institutions. At least the cataloging in universal format should be done on priority to analyse the metadata for copyright free status. A central repository is needed to avoid duplication in scanning. CIS-A2K needs to design strategic plan for this activity.
For in-depth case studies of potential GLAM-Wiki institutions, Wikimedian in Residence (WiR) programme should be adopted.
Interactions with concerned State and Central Government departments would facilitate the research activity and further collaborations. The findings of the research could be shared with such agencies along with concrete project proposals designed in collaboration with concerned institutions.

As illustrated by the observations of this study, the digital turn has brought about significant changes in the cultural heritage sector, but a large part of these still pertain to concerns around access to cultural content. The role of digital technologies and free knowledge platforms like Wikipedia in addressing these issues of access and outreach, and importantly in content creation therefore remains to be explored, through a more comprehensive study of the sector. Further, the study has also been indicative of the potential of collaborative work, and efforts needed towards the same, which may be helpful in also contributing towards a broader strategy for GLAM work with Wikimedia projects in Indian languages.

Read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mapping-glam-in-maharashtra

Understanding the Data Gaps on Wikidata Concerning Heritage Structures of West Bengal

Bodhisattwa Mandal — 2021-05-15T12:31:40Z

This is a short study on identifying the data gaps related to heritage structures in West Bengal on Wikidata, and potential strategies to address the same. The report is authored by Bodhisattwa Mandal, with editorial oversight and support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha and external review by Sumandro Chattapadhyay. This is part of a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2019-2020.

Wikidata is a free and open repository of structured and linked data, hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, built collaboratively[1] by human volunteers and robots from all over the world[2]. This platform, with an initial intention to be used within Wikimedia projects as a high quality secondary database [3], first started by centrally linking Wikipedia articles about the same topics in different languages[4][5][6][7][8], but soon it started linking with external databases.

Introduction to Wikidata

Wikidata is designed to be structured as a Resource Description Framework or RDF model which describes statements in the form of triplets of subject–predicate–object. In Wikidata, subject–predicate–object is termed as item–property–value. Items on Wikidata can represent every possible object, concept or topic in human knowledge which passes a certain threshold of defined notability and are represented by unique Q numbers. The actual data of an item is called value, which is pre-defined by the data type, be it strings, numbers, dates, url links, coordinates, musical notations etc. or even other items. Properties, represented by unique P numbers, describe the data value of items. The items, properties and values are language independent and thus totally machine-readable, although for human comfort and understanding, one can describe items in their own languages by adding or translating labels, descriptions or aliases.

Due to the machine-readable triplet structure of Wikidata, the database can be easily queried to find answers, which might not be otherwise possible from a list of unstructured contents such as Wikipedia articles. To retrieve and manipulate RDF data formats in triplets, we require a semantic query language for RDF databases named SPARQL. Through Wikidata query service, one can use SPARQL and retrieve data and the prevailing gaps on Wikidata and visualize in different ways.

Wikidata in West Bengal, India

Massive imports of coordinates for places in West Bengal happened between October 2018 and May 2019 on Wikidata as reflected by the map generated using Resemble.js

Wikidata activities around India have been organized around India for almost 4 years under the WikiProject India umbrella. Targeted approaches to fill data gaps on different topics have been pursued through data-thons and campaigns in these years and community strength has been aimed to increase through workshops and skill sharing initiatives.

Being part of that initiative, the Indian state of West Bengal has seen a lot of activities around Wikidata in recent years. Under the WikiProject umbrella, Wikidata volunteers have been working together to build data on different topics related to the state, its demographics, culture, heritage, education, health, politics, language etc. As heritage has been the prime focus of the Wikimedia community members of West Bengal, in this essay, we will identify the data gaps related to the topic through SPARQL query and explore reasons for the same, if any, through interviews of active volunteers who have been working on this area for years.

Wikimedia community members have been working on documenting different forms of heritage since 2011, when they organized Wikipedia Takes Kolkata photo-walk for the first time. Since then, they have organized eight more Wikipedia Takes Kolkata photo-walks, 11 Wiki Exploration projects in 9 districts of the state, 2 editions of prestigious Wiki Loves Monuments in India 2018 and 2019 and several other documentation projects organized organically or single-handedly and by doing so they have uploaded several thousands of photographs related to heritage structures and GLAM collections on Wikimedia Commons.

In this essay, we will focus on the photo-walks and explorations which were conducted to document heritage structures of West Bengal. We will focus on two basic types of data which should be there in every dataset on heritage structures, i.e. a) location, and b) image, and we will find out if there is any significant gap there using SPARQL queries.

Photo-walks and Wiki Explorations in West Bengal

Map of KMC heritage buildings generated from Wikidata query https://w.wiki/Tir

Let’s start with the nine consecutive series of Wikipedia takes Kolkata photo-walks which aims to photo-document heritage buildings and structures of Kolkata. To understand the data gap related to the heritage buildings, we will examine the presence of graded heritage buildings and structures enlisted by Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) on Wikidata through different SPARQL queries. Wikidata now contains 923 heritage buildings and structures listed by KMC, but out of them 26.65% have images and only 18.53% have coordinates.

Although 81.47% of the items of the heritage structures were missing coordinates, but they gave fairly good idea about their location, all of the items had municipal wards and streets connected with them, utilizing which, photographers and travellers are expected to explore the sites easily. However, while testing the items of the wards, it was noticed that however all the 144 wards contain coordinates, but they all lack a crucial property which can denote their area of location i.e. the geoshape data. While coordinates can denote the exact location of certain parts of an area, it is misleading when it comes to a larger area, which requires geoshape to better describe the location. While testing the street data, it was found that both geoshape and coordinate data are lacking for the streets, which makes them extremely difficult to locate.

Map of temples in West Bengal generated from Wikidata query https://w.wiki/Tj7

For the last 3 years, Wikimedia volunteers from West Bengal have also been involved in Wiki Exploration projects to remote parts of the state documenting temples, mosques, sculptures etc., many of which have not been documented online before. Few hundreds of heritage structures in 9 districts of the state were documented and thousands of photographs under this project have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Now, if we test the Wikidata presence of the temples situated in West Bengal, it can be noticed that 435 temples have items, out of which only 196 items have images and only 79 have coordinates. however 302 of them have their location pin-pointed to the village, ward, town or city level. Similar to the previous case, although there are 40,359 items for villages located in West Bengal, only 0.017% have coordinates while none have geoshape data.

From the above two scenarios, it can be easily concluded from the SPARQL queries, that there has been a significant amount of data gap. Both the datasets contain significant lack of location data and images. The second scenario even lacks data on the temples itself.

Challenges of Contributing to Wikidata in/from West Bengal

Now, to understand why there are huge gaps in the data, we have interviewed four volunteers from West Bengal who are involved in these two kinds of projects, three of them are Wikimedia contributors for five-ten years and one of them is relatively new to the movement. They all upload heritage photographs to Wikimedia Commons and 2 of them contribute to Wikidata. All of them agreed that due to lack of suitable hardware, they could not document the exact coordinate data while photo-documenting heritage structures. GPS devices or full-frame cameras with built-in GPS are expensive and are not affordable to many. Interviewees have also pointed out that due to lack of proper training on how to document heritage structures properly, photographers and amaetur researchers miss out vital points of documentation and thus increase data gaps. Restricted access to private heritage structures like temples maintained by families or private heritage buildings and their documents, lack of proper existing documentation along with analogue and digital metadata, and rapid destruction of built heritage due to lack of maintenance or improper restoration procedures etc. are also the reasons for data gaps. While answering the question about why photographs are not converted fully into data, they point out that it might be a burden for photographers to learn about data entry in Wikidata, as this is out of their area of interest and workflow. As noted by an interviewee, ‘the nature of work for Wikidata does not match with photographers' workflow.’ However, they also stressed on the need to conduct training programmes on Wikidata for photographers and interested people involved in documentation to let them know the importance of structured data in the area of heritage documentation.

Recommendations

From the observations of this short study, it is recommended that volunteers working on heritage documentation in West Bengal should be supported with suitable hardware to document coordinates. Frequent training programs should be conducted, preferably by experts, for volunteers on how to document heritage structures in a professional way, so that data gaps remain minimal. Training on Wikidata should be conducted for photographers to let them understand the importance of structured data in the field of heritage documentation. It is also recommended to increase interaction among the Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons volunteers, to understand each other's work flow and strategically modify those to provide optimal results.

References

[1] Vrandečić, Denny (2012). "Wikidata: a new platform for collaborative data collection". Proceedings of the 21st international conference companion on World Wide Web - WWW '12 Companion. Lyon, France: ACM Press: 1063. doi:10.1145/2187980.2188242. ISBN 978-1-4503-1230-1.

[2] Vrandečić, Denny; Krötzsch, Markus (2014-09-23). "Wikidata: a free collaborative knowledgebase". Communications of the ACM. 57 (10): 78–85. doi:10.1145/2629489.

[3] Vrandečić, Denny (2012).

[4] Roth, Mathew (30 March 2012). "The Wikipedia data revolution". Wikimedia Foundation Blog.

[5] Pintscher, Lydia (14 January 2013). "First steps of Wikidata in the Hungarian Wikipedia". Wikimedia Deutschland Blog.

[6] Pintscher, Lydia (30 January 2013)."Wikidata coming to the next two Wikipedias". Wikimedia Deutschland Blog.

[7] Pintscher, Lydia (15 February 2013). "Wikidata live on the English Wikipedia". Wikimedia Deutschland Blog.

[8] Pintscher, Lydia (6 March 2013). "Wikidata now live on all Wikipedias". Wikimedia Deutschland Blog.

Notes

[1] The query results were generated during early 2020. The results may vary at the time of publication of this article.

[2] See Annexure I for the interview questionnaire.

[3] Read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/understanding-the-data-gaps-on-wikidata-concerning-heritage-structures-of-west-bengal

Entertainment industry and Internet piracy in focus

praskrishna — 2012-09-17T10:00:54Z

The first-of-its-kind initiative by the anti-piracy cell of the Kerala Police to register cases against 1,010 Internet users for uploading or downloading the Malayalam film Bachelor Party has sparked a debate between social media experts and legal puritans on what the law actually says.

Krishnadas Rajagopal's article was published in the Hindu on September 17, 2012. Pranesh Prakash and Prashant Iyengar are quoted.

Internet users and anti-monopoly advocates say the police action against movie downloaders is “questionable.” They argue how the Copyright Act, 1957, has given wide exception to those who disseminate copyright works for “personal and private use.”

Legal puritans, on the other hand, quote the same 1957 law and the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, to argue that the State police have not done anything wrong.

They say the act of uploading and downloading a copyrighted cinematographic work amounts to publishing and transmitting it, respectively.

They cite Section 66 of the IT Act, 2000, that says a “hacker,” if found guilty, can get three years’ imprisonment, a fine up to Rs.2 lakh, or even both.

That’s not all. Section 43 of the same statute prescribes that a “hacker” may have to cough up Rs.1 crore in compensation in case of “damage to the computer system.”

Middle line

Some others draw the middle line about the police’s drive. They say that though downloading is as illegal as buying a pirated CD from the market and “ignorance of law is no excuse to escape prosecution under an existing law,” the sheer magnitude of registering mass cases against downloaders, probably on a global scale, is impractical.

“It is questionable whether downloading for personal use by itself constitutes an offence under the Copyright Act, 1957. The Act has created a wide exception for personal and private use,” says Pranesh Prakash, programme manager for Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance and Freedom of Speech at The Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore.

The usage “personal and private use” in the Act can be better understood in the contrast — that is, downloading without any intention to “disseminate the cinematographic work to a community you are not provisionally associated to.”

Legislative intent

Prashant Iyengar, Assistant Professor and Assistant Director, Centre for Intellectual Property Rights Studies, Jindal Global Law School, says the legislative intent behind the wide exceptions given to dissemination of work in the 1957 law is actually strengthening the public domain.

“In India under the Copyright Act, we have a robust regime of fair dealing rights to ensure that information cannot be monopolised at the expense of the public’s access to information,” he says.

He refers to Section 52 of the Act that allows reproduction of literary, artistic, musical, and dramatic works for research and private uses without any “quantitative restriction” on the amount that may be copied. “However, cinematographic works do not fall under this exception,” he says.

Under Section 51, a single copy of a cinematographic work could be “imported” to India for personal and domestic use. This would not amount to copyright infringement.

“But it is currently unsettled in law whether Section 51 would protect users downloading movies for their personal use. On the other hand, if you receive a copy of a movie CD by post, this section would clearly apply,” Mr. Iyengar says.

Pavan Duggal, senior Supreme Court lawyer specialising in cyber laws, differs in his opinion. As far as he is concerned, the law is clear against copyright infringement.

He says unauthorised downloading of movies also attracts action under the IT Act, 2000. “The legal perspective is that when you upload a pirated copy, you are doing an act of publishing and when you click the ‘download’ button, you are transmitting data in an electronic format for the purpose of diminishing the value of electronic information,” he says.

“The Kerala Police have not done anything fundamentally wrong by registering cases against uploaders and downloaders. When I am creating a film, I have copyright to both cinematic and electronic versions. In case of infringement, I can act by suing for damages, injunction, in addition to exposing the person to criminal liability under the Copyright Act,” Mr. Duggal says.

However, Mr. Iyengar vehemently counters the point. He asks a “pertinent” question — how the Kerala Police conducted their probe and how the Internet Protocol addresses were obtained when Internet service providers have strict privacy obligations against disclosure of any such details, except to government authorities.

“In this case, one hears that a private investigation firm called ‘Jadoo Infotech’ was involved in conducting ‘cyber-patrolling,’ which is not authorised by any law. They would be guilty of the digital equivalent offence of ‘lurking house trespass’,” Mr. Iyengar says.

But Nandagopal Rajan, an associate editor with a technology magazine in Delhi, has a simple logic grounded in law.

“Anybody who is downloading illegally cannot seek protection. You are actually doing something illegal. On the flip side, how many people can you prosecute?” he asked.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/www-the-hindu-sep-17-2012-krishnadas-rajagopal-entertainment-industry-and-internet-piracy-in-focus

ಪ್ರಶಾಂತವನ

praskrishna — 2016-03-20T04:32:04Z

ಮಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಸಂತ ಅಲೋಷಿಯಸ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಎರಿಕ್ ಮೆಥಾಯಿಸ್ ಸಭಾಂಗಣದಲ್ಲಿ ನಡೆದ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ೧೩ನೇ ವರ್ಷಾಚರಣೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಒಂದು ವರದಿ

The blog post was published in Prashasti Prashantavanam on February 21, 2016.

ಲಾಸ್ಯ ಶೆಟ್ಟಿಯವರ ನಿರೂಪಣೆಯ ವರ್ಷಾಚರಣಾ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಶುರುವಾದದ್ದು "ಹೊಸ ಹಾದಿಯನು ಹಿಡಿದು ನಡೆಯಣ್ಣ ಮುಂದೆ.." ಎಂಬ ರೋಹಿತ್ , ಗೋಪಾಲಕೃಷ್ಣ ಮತ್ತು ತಂಡದವರಿಂದ. ಮುಂದುವರಿಯುವುದಕ್ಕೆ ಮುಂಚೆ ವೇದಿಕೆಯನ್ನು ಅಲಂಕರಿಸಿದ ಗಣ್ಯರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಒಂದೆರಡು ನುಡಿಗಳನ್ನಾದರೂ ಹೇಳಲೇಬೇಕಾಗುತ್ತೆ.ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿ ಬಳಸುವವರಿಗೆಲ್ಲಾ ಅದರಲ್ಲಿನ ಕೆ.ಪಿ.ರಾವ್ ಕೀಲಿಮಣೆಯ ಪರಿಚಯವಿದ್ದೇ ಇರುತ್ತೆ. ಕನ್ನಡವೊಂದೇ ಅಲ್ಲದೇ ಅನೇಕ ಭಾರತೀಯ ಭಾಷೆಗಳ ಭಾರತೀಯ ಭಾಷೆಗಳ ಲಿಪಿಗಳನ್ನು ಗಣಕಕ್ಕೆ ಅಳವಡಿಸಿದ ಗಣಕ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನಿ ನಾಡೋಜ ಕೆ.ಪಿ ರಾವ್ ಅವರು ಇಂದಿನ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದ ಮುಖ್ಯ ಅತಿಥಿ.ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದ ಮತ್ತೊಬ್ಬ ಮುಖ್ಯ ಅತಿಥಿ ಶ್ರೀ ವಸಂತಕುಮಾರ ಪೆರ್ಲ. ಇವರು ಮಂಗಳೂರು ಆಕಾಶವಾಣಿ ನಿಲಯ ನಿರ್ದೇಶಕರು ಮತ್ತು ಕನ್ನಡ ಪದಗಳ ಸೃಷ್ಠಿಗಾಗಿ ಪದಾರ್ಥಚಿಂತಾಮಣಿಯಂತಹ ಮುಖಹೊತ್ತಿಗೆಯ ಗುಂಪುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ತೊಡಗಿಸಿಕೊಂಡವರು. ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದ ಮೂರನೇ ಮುಖ್ಯ ಅತಿಥಿ ಪಿಲಿಕುಳ ನಿಸರ್ಗಧಾಮದ ಕಾರ್ಯನಿರ್ವಹಣಾಧಿಕಾರಿ ,ಮಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಹಿಂದಿನ ಪ್ರಭಾರಿ ಜಿಲ್ಲಾಧಿಕಾರಿಗಳಾಗಿದ್ದ S.A ಪ್ರಭಾಕರ ಶರ್ಮ ಅವರು, ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದ ಅಧ್ಯಕ್ಷತೆ ವಹಿಸಿದ್ದು ಸಂತ ಅಲೋಷಿಯಸ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಪ್ರಾಂಶುಪಾಲರಾದ ರೆ| ಫಾ| ಸ್ವೀಬರ್ಟ್ ಡಿ’ಸಿಲ್ವ ಅವರು. ಇದಲ್ಲದೇ ವೇದಿಕೆಯನ್ನಲಕಂರಿಸಿದ ಗಣ್ಯರೆಂದರೆ ಸಂತ ಅಲೋಷಿಯಸ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಬಿ.ಸಿ.ಎ ವಿಭಾಗದ ಮುಖ್ಯಸ್ಥರಾದ ಡಾ| ರವೀಂದ್ರಸ್ವಾಮಿ ಅವರು, ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಭಾಗದ ಮುಖ್ಯಸ್ಥರಾದ ಡಾ| ಸರಸ್ವತಿ ಅವರು ಮತ್ತು ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ವ್ಯವಸ್ಥಾಪಕರಾದ ಡಾ| ಯು.ಬಿ.ಪವನಜ ಮತ್ತು ಹದಿಮೂರನೆಯ ವರ್ಷಾಚರಣೆಯ ಸಂಚಾಲಕರಾದ ಡಾ| ವಿಶ್ವನಾಥ ಬದಿಕಾನ ಅವರು.

ಶ್ರೀ ವಿಶ್ವನಾಥ ಬದಿಕಾನ ಅವರ ಸ್ವಾಗತ ಮತ್ತು ಪ್ರಾಸ್ತಾವಿಕ ನಂತರ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದ ಉದ್ಘಾಟನೆಯಾಗಿದ್ದು ನಾಡೋಜ ಕೆ.ಪಿ.ರಾವ್ ಅವರಿಂದ. ನಂತರ ಕೆ.ಪಿ.ರಾವ್ ಅವರಿಗೆ ಸನ್ಮಾನ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ. ಸನ್ಮಾನ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದ ನಂತರ ಮಾತನಾಡಿದ ರೆವರೆಂಡ್ ಫಾದರ್ ಡಿಸಿಲ್ವ ಅವರು ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಇತಿಹಾಸದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ, ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯಕ್ಕೆ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಕೊಡುಗೆಗಳ ನಡೆ, ಕನ್ನಡಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ನಡೆಯುತ್ತಿರುವ ಕೆಲಸಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಮತ್ತು ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆಯೂ ತಮ್ಮ ಮೆಚ್ಚುಗೆಯ ನುಡಿಗಳನ್ನು ವ್ಯಕ್ತಪಡಿಸಿದರು.

ನಂತರ ಕೆ.ಪಿ.ರಾವ್ ಅವರು ಎರಡು ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗಳಿಗೆ ಉತ್ತರ ಹುಡುಕುವಂತಹ ಹಾದಿಯಲ್ಲಿನ ಶುಭನುಡಿಗಳು ನೆರೆದವರ ಗಮನ ಸೆಳೆಯುವಂತಿದ್ದವು.

ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಏಕೆ ಬೇಕು ? ಅನ್ನುವ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗೆ ಮೂರು ಉತ್ತರ ಹುಡುಕುವ ಹಾದಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಸಾಗಿದ ಅವರ ಅಭಿಪ್ರಾಯದಲ್ಲಿ ೧.ಕನ್ನಡ ಲಿಪಿ ಮಾತ್ರ ಬಲ್ಲವರಿಗೆ ಜಗದ ಜ್ಞಾನ ತಿಳಿಸಿಕೊಡಬಲ್ಲ ಸುಲಭದ ಮಾಧ್ಯಮ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ೨. ಕನ್ನಡಕ್ಕೆ ಮಾತ್ರ ಸಂಬಂಧಿಸಿದ ವಿಷಯಗಳು ,ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತಿ,ಭಾಷಾ ಸೊಗಡು ಬೇರೆ ಭಾಷೆಯ ವಿಕಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಅಷ್ಟು ಸಮಂಜಸವಾಗಿ/ಪೂರ್ಣವಾಗಿ ಮೂಡಿಬರಲು ಸಾಧ್ಯವಿಲ್ಲ.

೩. ಯಾರಿಗಾದರೂ ಗೌರವ ಕೊಡಲು ಬಳಸಬಹುದಾದ ರು,ರಿಗೆ(ರಾಯರು,ರಾಯರಿಗೆ) ಯಂತಹ ಭಾಷಾ ವೈಶಿಷ್ಟ್ಯವನ್ನು ಹೊಂದಿದ ಕನ್ನಡಕ್ಕೆ ತನ್ನದೇ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯವಿರಬೇಕಾದ ಅಗತ್ಯವಿದೆ.

ಮುಂದುವರಿಸಿದ ಅವರು ಕನ್ನಡಕ್ಕೆ ಭಾಷಾಂತರದ ಬದಲು ರೂಪಾಂತರ ಮಾಡುವ ಅಗತ್ಯದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಪ್ರಸ್ತಾಪಿಸಿದರು.ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಮೂಲಕವಾದರು ಕನ್ನಡ ಪದಬಳಕೆಯಲ್ಲೊಂದು ಸಮಾನತೆ ಬರಲೆಂಬ ಆಶಯವನ್ನೂ ವ್ಯಕ್ತಪಡಿಸಿದರು.

ನಂತರ ಮಾತನಾಡಿದ ಮುಖ್ಯ ಅತಿಥಿಗಳಾದ ವಸಂತಕುಮಾರ್ ಪೆರ್ಲ ಅವರು ಶಿಲಾಲೇಖ--> ತಾಮ್ರ ಪಟ-->ತಾಳೆಗರಿ-->ಪುಸ್ತಕದ ರೂಪದಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ ಈಗ Digitial ಅವತರಣಿಕೆಯಾಗಿ ಬೆಳೆದು ಬಂದ ಪರಿಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿದರು. ಕರಾವಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಹವ್ಯಕ, ಬ್ಯಾರಿ,ತುಳು,ಕೊಂಕಣಿ, ಮಲೆಯಾಳಂ,ಮರಾಠ,ಕರಾಡ, ಬೆಸ್ತರ ಹಲವು ಉಪಭಾಷೆಗಳ ರೂಪದಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಭಾಷಾ ಸೊಗಡನ್ನು, ನಮ್ಮ ರೀತಿ ರಿವಾಜುಗಳನ್ನು ದಾಖಲಿಸಿಡುವ,ವಿಕಿ ಮೂಲಕ ಸಂರಕ್ಷಿಸುವ ಅಗತ್ಯದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿದರು.

ನಂತರದ ಶುಭನುಡಿಗಳು ಪಿಲಿಕುಳದ ಶಿವರಾಮಕಾರಂತ ನಿಸರ್ಗಧಾಮದ ಕಾರ್ಯನಿರ್ವಹಣಾಧಿಕಾರಿಗಳಾದ S.Aಪ್ರಭಾಕರ ಶರ್ಮ ಅವರಿಂದ. ತದನಂತರ ಡಾ| ಯು.ಬಿ ಪವನಜ ತಮ್ಮ ತೈವಾನ್ ಪ್ರವಾಸದ ಸಂದರ್ಭದಲ್ಲಿ ಪೂರ್ಣ ಚೈನೀಸಿನ windows ನೋಡಿ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲೂ ಈ ರೀತಿ ಮಾಡಬಾರದೇಕೆ ಎಂದು ಆಲೋಚಿಸಿದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ, ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿದ್ದರು. ೧೯೫೨ರಲ್ಲಿ ೧೬೦೨ರಷ್ಟಿದ್ದ ಭಾಷೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಈಗ ಉಳಿದಿರುವುದು ೭೦೫ ಮಾತ್ರ ! ಭಾಷೆಗಳ ಪರಿಸ್ಥಿತಿ ಇಷ್ಟು ಚಿಂತಾಜನಕವಾಗಿರೋ ಸಂದರ್ಭದಲ್ಲಿ "ಮಾಹಿತಿಯ ಆಗರ" ಎಂಬಂತಾಗಿರೋ ಕನ್ನಡಕ್ಕೆ ವಿಕಿ ಏಕೆ ಮತ್ತು ಹೇಗೆ ನೆರವಾಗಬಹುದು,ಅದರ ಸದ್ಯದ ಸ್ಥಿತಿಗತಿಗಳೇನು ಎಂಬುದರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿದರು.

ವಿಕಿಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ:

ಜನವರಿ ೧೫ ರಂದು ಶುರುವಾದ ವಿಕಿ ಈಗ ೩೦೦ ಭಾಷೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಲಭ್ಯವಿದೆ. ೨೦೦೩ ಜೂನ್ ಮೂರರಂದು ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಯ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭ. ಇಲ್ಲಿಯವರೆಗೆ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು, ಮೈಸೂರು, ಮಂಗಳೂರು, ಸಾಗರದಲ್ಲಿ ಆದ ಸಂಪಾದನೋತ್ಸವಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ, ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ ರಚನೆಯಾದ ಪುಟಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ, ಜನರ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸುವಿಕೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿದರು. ಮಾತನಾಡುವವರ ಲೆಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿ ೩೫ ನೇ ಸ್ಥಾನದಲ್ಲಿರೋ ಕನ್ನಡದ ವಿಕಿಗೆ ಪ್ರತೀ ಘಂಟೆಗೆ ೮೯೨ ಭೇಟಿಗಳು ಸಿಗುತ್ತಿವೆ. ೧೫ ವರ್ಷಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ ವಿಕಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಸೃಷ್ಠಿಯಾಗಿರೋ ಲೇಖನಗಳ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆ ೫೦ ಲಕ್ಷ ದಾಟಿದ್ದರೆ ೧೩ ವರ್ಷದ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿ ಲೇಖನಗಳ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆ ೧೯,೬೦೦. ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಭಾಷೆಗಳ ಪಟ್ಟಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ೧೦೭ನೇ ಸ್ಥಾನದಲ್ಲಿರೋ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿ ಭಾರತೀಯ ಭಾಷೆಗಳ ಪಟ್ಟಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹತ್ತನೇ ಸ್ಥಾನದಲ್ಲಿದೆ ಎಂಬ ವಿಕಿಯ ಬಗೆಗಿನ ಅಂಕಿಅಂಶಗಳು ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ನೆರೆದವರಿಗೆ ತಿಳಿಯಲ್ಪಟ್ಟವು. ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮಕ್ಕೆ ನೆರೆದಿದ್ದವರಿಗೆಲ್ಲಾ ಧನ್ಯವಾದಗಳನ್ನು ಸಮರ್ಪಿಸಿದ್ದು ಡಾ| ಸರಸ್ವತಿ ಅವರು.

೧೧:೪೦ ಕ್ಕೆ ಪ್ರಾತ್ಯಕ್ಷಿಕೆಗಳ ಎರಡನೇ session ಆರಂಭವಾಯಿತು. ಇದರಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಲೇಖನಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ, ಅದರ ಸಂಪಾದನೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ, ಖಾತೆ ತೆರೆಯುವುದೇ ಮೊದಲಾದ ಮಾಹಿತಿಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ, ಯೋಜನೆಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಪವನಜ ಅವರು ನೆರೆದವರಿಗೆ ಪ್ರಾತ್ಯಕ್ಷಿಕೆಯನ್ನು ನೀಡಿದರು

೧೨:೪೦ ಕ್ಕೆ Creative common, license ಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಸಂಪಾದಕರಲ್ಲೊಬ್ಬರಾದ ರೆಹಮಾನುದ್ದೀನ್ ಶೇಖ್ ಅವರಿಂದ ಪ್ರಾತ್ಯಕ್ಷಿಕೆ ಇತ್ತು.
ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ನ Attribution, no derivative, non commercia, sharealike ಎಂಬ ಅಂಶಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿದ ರೆಹಮಾನುದ್ದೀನ್ ಅವರು ೬ ತರದ ಲೈಸನ್ಸುಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿದರು. ಅವುಗಳೆಂದರೆ
೧) cc by A --> attribute
2) cc by S --> share alike
3)cc by ND --> no derivative
4)cc by NC --> non commercial
5)non commerical, share alike(CC by SA)
6)non commercial, no derivative
ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಫೋಟೊಗಳನ್ನು ಬಳಸಬೇಕಾದರೆ ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸಬೇಕಾದ creativecommonsತಾಣದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿದ ಅವರು ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಯಾವ ತರಹದ ಫೋಟೋಗಳನ್ನು ಬಳಸಬಹುದು, ಯಾವುದನ್ನು ಬಳಸಬಾರದು ಎಂಬ ನಿಯಮಗಳನ್ನು ತಿಳಿಸಿದರು. ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿರೋ ಫೋಟೋಗಳನ್ನು ಬಳಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವಾಗ ಫೋಟೋ ಬಳಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳಬಹುದು, ಆದರೆ ವಿಕಿಯಿಂದ ತೆಗೆದುಕೊಂಡದ್ದು, ಇಂಥವರ ಫೋಟೋ ಎಂದು ಹೇಳಬೇಕು ಎಂಬುದೇ ಮೊದಲಾದ ಲೈಸನ್ಸ್ ಗೆ ಸಂಬಂಧಪಟ್ಟ ನಿಯಮಗಳನ್ನು ತಿಳಿಸಿದರು.

ಬೆಳಗಿನ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದ ಕೊನೆಯ ಅಂಕದಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಸಕ್ರಿಯವಾಗಿ ತೊಡಗಿಸಿಕೊಂಡಿರುವ ರಾಧಾತನಯ, ವಸಂತಕುಮಾರ್,ಬಿ.ಎಸ್.ಚಂದ್ರಶೇಖರ್, ಓಂ ಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ್,ಹರೀಶ್ , ತೇಜಸ್ ಮುಂತಾದ ಸಂಪಾದಕರಿಗೆ ಧನ್ಯವಾದಗಳನ್ನು ಸಲ್ಲಿಸಲಾಯಿತು. ಹೊರ ಊರಿನಿಂದ ಬಂದ ಸಂಪಾದಕರಾದ ಅನಂತ್ ಸುಬ್ರಾಯ್ ,ಚಿರಾಗ್ ಸಾರ್ಥಿ ಮತ್ತಿತರರಿಗೆ ಪ್ರೇಮಿಗಳ ದಿನದ ಸಂಕೇತವಾದ ಗುಲಾಬಿಯನ್ನಿತ್ತು ಅಭಿನಂದಿಸಲಾಯಿತು :-)
ನಂತರದ ಭಾಗ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯನ್ನರ ನುಡಿಗಳು. ಇದರ ಅಂಗವಾಗಿ ಕೆಳಕಂಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯನ್ನರು ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದ ಬಗೆಗಿನ ತಮ್ಮ ಅಭಿಪ್ರಾಯಗಳನ್ನು ತಿಳಿಸಿದರು
೧)ಕ್ರೈಸ್ಟ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಯೋಜನೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ತೊಡಗಿಸಿಕೊಂಡಿರುವ ಡಾ| ಶಿವಪ್ರಸಾದ್
೨)ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯದ, ಮೈಸೂರು ಸಂಪಾದನೋತ್ಸವದ ಸಂಚಾಲಕರಾಗಿದ್ದ ಡಾ| ಸೌಭಾಗ್ಯವತಿ
೩)ಸಾಗರದ ಸಂಜಯ ಗಾಂಧಿ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ, ಸಾಗರ ಸಂಪಾದನೋತ್ಸವದ ಸಂಚಾಲಕರಾಗಿದ್ದ ವಿದ್ಯಾಧರ ಚಿಪ್ಳಿ
೪)ಸಂತ ಆಗ್ನೆಸ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಉಪನ್ಯಾಸಕರಾದ ಶ್ರೀಮತಿ ಕವಿತಾ
೫)ಭಾರತೀಯ ಗೋತಳಿಗಳ ವಿಕಿ ಯೋಜನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ, ಸಾಗರ ಸಂಪಾದನೋತ್ಸವದ ಸಹಸಂಚಾಲಕರಾಗಿದ್ದ ವಿಕಾಸ್ ಹೆಗಡೆ
೬)ಕ್ರೈಸ್ಟ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿನಿ ತ್ರಿವೇಣಿ
೭)ಸಂತ ಅಲೋಷಿಯಸ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿನಿ ಮಮತಾ ಅವರು
೮)ಸಂತ ಆಗ್ನೆಸ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿನಿ ಧನಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಿ
೯)ಉಜಿರಿಯ SDM ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳಾದ ಆಂಜನೇಯ ಮತ್ತು ಮಂಜುನಾಥ
೧೦)ಮಂಗಳೂರಿನ ರಾಮಕೃಷ್ಣ ಪಿ.ಯು ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಉಪನ್ಯಾಸಕ ನಟೇಶ್ ಆಳ್ವ
೧೧)ಮುಕ್ತ ತಂತ್ರಾಶಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ತಮ್ಮನ್ನು ತೊಡಗಿಸಿಕೊಂಡಿರುವ, it for change,openstreetmap NGO ಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ತೊಡಗಿಸಿಕೊಂಡಿರುವ ಶ್ರೀ ಯೋಗೀಶ್
೧೨)openstreetmapನಲ್ಲಿ ತೊಡಗಿಸಿಕೊಂಡಿರುವ ಶ್ರೀವಿದ್ಯಾ ಅವರು
೧೩)ಕೊನೆಯದಾಗಿ ನನಗೂ ಒಂದಿಷ್ಟು ಮಾತನಾಡೋ ಅವಕಾಶ !

ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನ ಭೋಜನಾನಂತರ ಸಂತ ಅಲೋಶಿಯಸ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಐಟಿ ಲ್ಯಾಬಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಸಂಪಾದನೋತ್ಸವ ನಡೆಯಬೇಕಿತ್ತು. ಆದರೆ ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲ ಸಂಪರ್ಕ ವ್ಯತ್ಯಯದ ಕಾರಣದಿಂದ ಅದರ ಬದಲಿ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಸಭಾಂಗಣಕ್ಕೆ ಸ್ಥಳಾಂತರಗೊಂಡಿತು. ರೆಹಮಾನುದ್ದೀನ್ ಅವರಿಂದ ಉತ್ತಮ ವಿಕಿ ಲೇಖನ ಹೇಗಿರಬೇಕು, ಇರುವ ಲೇಖನವನ್ನು ಬಾಹ್ಯ ಕೊಂಡಿ, info document ,ಚಿತ್ರಗಳನ್ನು ಹಾಕುವ ಮೂಲಕ ಹೇಗೆ ಉತ್ತಮಪಡಿಸುವುದು ಎಂಬ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಪ್ರಾತ್ಯಕ್ಷಿಕೆ ನಡೆಯಿತು. ನೆರೆದಿದ್ದ ಕಾಲೇಜು ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳಿಗೆ ಪಿಲಿಕುಳದಲ್ಲಿ ತೆಗೆದಿದ್ದ ಚಿತ್ರಗಳನ್ನು ಪಿಲಿಕುಳ ಎಂಬ ವರ್ಗಕ್ಕೆ ಸೇರಿಸಿ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಹೇಗೆ ತಯಾರಿಸಬಹುದು ಎಂಬುದರ ಬಗ್ಗೆಯೂ ವೇದಿಕೆಯಲ್ಲೇ ತಿಳಿಸಲಾಯಿತು. ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಪಾಲ್ಗೊಂಡವರಿಗೆಲ್ಲಾ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸುವಿಕೆಯ ಪ್ರಮಾಣಪತ್ರ , ಕಾಲೇಜುಗಳಿಗೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದ ಪೆನ್ ಡ್ರೈವ್ ನೀಡಲಾಯಿತು. ಸಂಜೆ ನಾಲ್ಕರ ಸುಮಾರಿಗೆ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಮುಗಿಸಿ ಹೊರಬಂದರೂ ಇನ್ನೂ ಆ ವೇದಿಕೆಯ ನೆನಪು ಮನದಲ್ಲಿ ಸುಳಿಯುತ್ತಲೇ ಇದೆ. ನೂರಕ್ಕೂ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ನೆರೆದಿದ್ದ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯನ್ನರ ನುಡಿಗಳು ಕಿವಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಅನುರಣಿಸುತ್ತಲೇ ಇದೆ.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/caaccdcb0cb6cbec82ca4cb5ca8

IP Meetup #02: Prabir Purkayastha on the CRI Guidelines and software patenting in India

sinha — 2016-03-29T17:06:13Z

Prabir Purkayastha will deliver a short talk on what the Guidelines on Computer Related Inventions mean for software patenting, and the way forward, on Sunday, March 20th, 2016 at the CIS Delhi office, at 4 p.m.

We would like to invite you to the second session of a series of IP focused meetups. The meetups are aimed at bringing folks together working within or interested in IP law, to discuss recent developments with reference to access to knowledge, climate change, health, trade, etc.

The talk will be followed by a round of discussion, after which the floor will be thrown open for other pressing/relevant IP developments.

Please join us for tea and refreshments at 3.30 pm.

Please RSVP by dropping a line at anubha@cis-india.org.

CIS Delhi's location on Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/nPKkoQFhRSt

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/ip-meetup-02-prabir-purkayastha-on-the-cri-guidelines-and-software-patenting-in-india

Project Tiger 2.0

Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill — 2019-11-24T09:18:00Z

If you think that Indian languages are as important as international languages, like English, then, you are on the same page with this article. If not, then, let me explain, why it is a significant and much bigger issue than you think.

The blog post by Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill is in multiple languages: English, Punjabi, Hindi and Telugu.

Every day, millions of users try to access information from the internet. In India, the number of users who try to access information in their own language (native/Indic language) is mind-boggling. Study says that by the year 2021, the number of Hindi users will surpass that of the English users and a few other indic languages which together form 30% of the Indian languages internet user base. Research also says that 68% of internet users consider local language content to be more reliable than English content.

Despite all these facts, one major reason that is limiting users from accessing information in Indian Languages, is the huge knowledge gap that is found online. When Google’s research team analyzed the results of most searched yet missing topics on the internet in Indian Languages, they decided to partner with the Wikimedia Foundation and started a pilot program called Project Tiger, also known as Supporting Indian language Wikipedias in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge in 2017 to support Indic Wikimedians in generating high quality content in their local language Wikipedias. Read More.

Project Tiger, as the name suggests, is inspired by, and named after, an environmental project in India, to save tigers. Similarly, Wikipedia’s project Tiger, aims at nurturing locally relevant content on Indic language Wikipedias. This project happens in two phases:The first phase during early 2018 is when Google provided 50 Acer Laptops and 100 Internet stipends to experienced and promising Wikimedians, who needed infrastructure support to increase contributions. Once the distribution is done, communities start creating articles from the list provided by Google. Read More

In the first iteration of Project Tiger held in 2018, 12 Indic communities came forward and took part in the 3 month article writing contest during March-May and created over 4,466 articles with total page views of 1,65,774! Every article is reviewed by the corresponding language jury member against several parameters. Only if an article meets all the criteria, it gets accepted. The Punjabi community won the contest with a whopping 1320 articles followed by the Tamil community with 1241 articles. Read More

Besides the monthly prizes given to the top three contributors from each community, the winner and the runner up communities had a 3-day training session at Amritsar, Punjab. This session was lead by User:Asaf (WMF) where he taught the participants on writing articles with encyclopedic value and also introduced Wikidata and tools used in it. Read More

After witnessing the humongous success of Project Tiger in 2018, the second iteration has been rolled out which is called Project Tiger 2.0 or GLOW (Growing Local Language Content on Wikipedia). This is being run in four more countries apart from India for the first time. In addition to the 12 language communities that participated previously, Santali, Punjabi(Shanmukhi script) and Sanskrit also have agreed to join the contest this year. Communities have also come up with their own set of articles to write on, along with the list given by Google. This year, the project aims at articles with high quality and communities are committed to doing the same.

If you are interested in joining, please visit this page.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/suswetha-kolluru-and-nitesh-gill-november-22-2019-project-tiger-2