Centre for Internet and Society

National IPR Policy Series : Comments on the Proposed Intellectual Property Rights Policy to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion

nehaa — 2015-04-12T11:39:16Z

On 13 November, 2014, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion had released a Call for Suggestions for India's proposed National IPR Policy. This is the Centre for Internet and Society's (CIS) submission for the same.

Submitted by CIS with inputs from Pranesh Prakash, Director, Nehaa Chaudhari, Programme Officer, Anubha Sinha, Programme Officer and Amulya P., Intern. Click to view the PDF.

I. Preliminary

I.1. This submission presents comments from the Centre for Internet and Society ("CIS")[1] on the proposed National Intellectual Property Rights Policy ("National IPR policy") to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. ("DIPP").

I.2. CIS commends the DIPP for this initiative, and appreciates the opportunity to provide comments on the National IPR Policy. CIS' comments are as stated hereafter.

II. Principles

II.1.1. The characterization of intellectual property rights may be two- fold- first, at their core, intellectual property rights, are temporary monopolies granted to inter alia, authors and inventors; and second, they are a tool to ensure innovation, social, scientific and cultural progress and further access to knowledge. This dual nature and purpose of intellectual property protection is particularly critical in developing economies such as India. Excessive intellectual property protection could result in stunted innovation and negatively impact various stakeholders. [2] It is therefore our submission that the development of the IPR Policy be informed by broader principles of fairness and equity, balancing intellectual property protections with limitations and exceptions/user rights such as those for research, education and access to medicines.

II.1.2. These comments will evaluate the recent developments in the intellectual property regime in India and point out instances for possible reform.

II.1.3. These comments have been divided into five sections, dealing with patents, openness, open access to scholarly works, copyright, and negotiating free trade agreements in that order.

III. Detailed Comments

III.1. Patents

III.1.1. Key Issues Regarding Patents

III.1.1.1. The key issues involving patents in India include compulsory licensing, uncertainty in software patenting, slow pace of examination of patent applications, inter alia.

III.1.1.2. CIS submits that the Indian intellectual property regime contains numerous safeguards to ensure that monopolies of intellectual property are not exercised to the detriment of the public and that the National IPR Policy should continue to reflect these ideals.

III.1.2. Software Patents and Dual Monopoly

III.1.2.1. Presently, software in India may be copyrighted and computer related inventions are patentable. CIS is of the opinion that this results in an ambiguity that could potentially result in a dual monopoly over the same subject matter. This ambiguity around the legality of software patents and the scope of patents on computer related inventions has existed since the Parliament introduced the term "per se" to section 3(k) through the Patent (Amendment) Act, 2002, persisting despite repeated attempts[3] to bring about clarity in the law (the most recent one being the Draft Guidelines on Computer Related Inventions, released in 2013 by the Indian patent office).

III.1.2.2. CIS believes that software is currently adequately protected under copyright, and does not merit patent protection. The software industry in its infancy grew by leaps and bounds in the absence of patents, and imposing twenty year monopolies is stunting the development of software, especially, in an industry where technology changes every two to five years.

III.1.2.3. Therefore, CIS is of the opinion that the National IPR Policy should recognise the danger of software patenting, and encourage the adoption of and development of alternatives to a strict intellectual property regime, for instance, Free/Open Source/Libre Software.

III.1.3. Compulsory Licensing of Patents

III.1.3.1. CIS believes that the current regime allowing for compulsory licensing of patents in India helps achieve a balance between the two concerns of rewarding inventions and making them available to the public during times of need, of the rights of the patent holder with his obligations to ensure availability of products at a reasonable price by allowing third parties who do not own the patent to license the use of the patent during the term of protection.[4] CIS believes that such a balance cannot be arrived at merely by market mechanisms. CIS further believes that achieving such a balance is important for a developing country like India as we have special concerns regarding access to healthcare and access to technologies that will protect our national interest.[5]

III.1.3.2. Therefore CIS submits that the National IPR policy should continue to make positive allowances for government involvement in this space, through the compulsory licensing of patents in certain situations.

III.1.4. Alternative Licensing Mechanisms

III.1.4.1. CIS believes that government participation in the patenting regime ensures that all interests are taken on board and the social costs of patents are kept in mind. CIS is of the opinion that the National IPR policy should be formed after careful consideration of alternative patent licensing mechanisms that could help achieve a balance between the interests of different stakeholders particularly because as a developing economy we have greater needs for access to medicines and technologies to ensure economic development.[6]

III.1.4.2. On patent pools: In the interests of ensuring development of technology and innovation while balancing the social costs of patents, CIS submits that the National IPR Policy should consider alternative licensing mechanisms such as patent pools which present an efficient legal arrangement to the different problems that arise when companies have complementary intellectual property rights and these rights are essential to new technologies being used and employed[7]. Such a licensing could be done with government participation to ensure standard royalty rates and standard agreements.

III.1.4.3. On tailoring patent strengths: Our patent system provides for a one size first all approach to patent terms. CIS believes that the National IPR Policy could suggest the adoption of a more studied approach to differential patent strengths that properly balances out the benefits of the innovation against social costs of patents both in the form of monopoly pricing and threats to subsequent pricing is required to ensure that our patent system is fair equitable and in our national interest.[8]

III.1.4.4. On royalty caps: CIS believes that the National IPR policy could encourage bringing back royalty caps for certain sectors as a means of regulating the market and ensuring that access to technologies is unharmed. CIS believes that this will serve the larger national interest and ensure technological development.[9]

III.2. Openness

III.2.1. Free and Open Source Software

III.2.1.1. Free and Open Source Software ("FOSS") has emerged as a key agent in information technology policy making in India. There has been an increased importance of free and open source software in education, governmental agencies, as recently demonstrated by the Indian Government's decision to shift to open source software, in sync with the Digital India initiative.[10]

III.2.1.2. CIS believes that the IPR policy should encourage free and open software in education, governmental agencies etc. CIS believes that this shift in open source software is necessary to keep our IPR policy in sync with developments in the digital world.

III.3. Open Access to Scholarly Works

III.3.1. Open Access Policies and Scientific and Scholarly Works

III.3.1.1. The benefits of implementing an open access policy with regard to scientific and scholarly works are manifold. Providing open access to scholarly research will ensure percolation of cutting edge research into the society. It has been often argued that restricted access to government funded research is unethical, since scientific research conducted by government agencies is partly, if not entirely, funded by the taxpayers' money.

III.3.1.2. Government Initiatives Towards Open Access

III.3.1.2.1. CIS believes that the steps taken in this regard by the Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science to make scientific research publicly available by developing an open access policy are laudable, especially from the view of increasing access to research undertaken at these institutions.

III.3.1.2.2. There are several other government agencies which have implemented open access policies, namely, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Indian Council of Agricultural Research and Institute of Mathematical Sciences. CIS believes that this is step in the right direction

III.3.1.2.3. Copyright is the key instrument to effect open access policies. CIS believes that the work should be appropriately copyrighted to allow for free and open access to any interested person.

III.4. Copyright

III.4.1. Exceptions for Fair Dealings

III.4.1.1. The 2012, Amendment Act extended fair dealing exceptions in several ways; to sound recordings, videos, to the making of three dimensional works from two dimensional works,[11] to storing of electronic copies at non-commercial public libraries, [12] to rights of commercial rental.[13] While the Act touched upon some of the burning issues with regard to limitations and exceptions to copyright, CIS believes that it did miss out on laying down clear rules for issues like exceptions for educational institutions, libraries and archives which is currently being negotiated at the standing committee of the WIPO as an international instrument,[14] parallel importation of books for non-commercial libraries, and extending the current exceptions for education to distance education and digital education. CIS is of the opinion that while this was a step in the right direction the IPR policy should continue the trend of extending exceptions for fair dealing and should encourage forming general guidelines for fair dealings as it would help achieve goals of education and scientific and cultural progress.

III.4.1.2. CIS believes that it would be beneficial if general guidelines for fair dealing were provided for. These guidelines must not take away from existing fair dealing exceptions under the law, but should act as a framework to understand what constitutes fair dealing. CIS submits that this coupled with support for the International Treaty for Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives[15] and for International Treaty for Limitations and Exceptions for Educational and Research Institutions [16]would help serve national interest as it would help reduce the freezing effect by reducing the costs of using copyrighted work legitimately and ensure social and cultural progress. CIS submits that the National IPR policy should encourage the international instruments aimed at providing for exceptions and limitations for fair dealings.

III.4.2. Exceptions for Government Produced Works

III.4.2.1. CIS believes that the current exceptions for use of government produced works are far too limited and taxpayers must be free to use the works that they have paid for.[17] CIS submits that the National IPR policy should encourage the broadening of exceptions with regard to government produced works.

III.4.3. Compulsory Licensing

III.4.3.1. The Act allowed for compulsory licensing of foreign works[18] and put in place statutory licenses for broadcasters[19] CIS believes that this was a positive step that will encourage cultural and scientific education in India. CIS submits that compulsory licenses for copyrighted works help achieve goals of education, of scientific and cultural progress. CIS submits that the National IPR policy should encourage compulsory licensing of copyrighted works in certain situations for the promotion of access to knowledge and information.

III.4.4. Protection of Authors/ Performers Rights

III.4.4.1. The Act allowed for protection of author's rights regarding storing of their work in electronic medium[20] and for protection of rights of performers both commercial [21] and moral.[22] CIS believes that while this is in itself a positive step, there is need to ensure that such moral rights are not abused by authors or rights holders to stop discourse or to stop fair use and adequate measures to ensure the same must be put in place to avoid excessive intellectual property rights. CIS submits that the National IPR policy should discuss limitations to moral rights of authors and performers to make room for fair dealings.

III.4.5. Users Rights Regarding Cover Versions Of Songs

III.4.5.1. The Act allows for users to make cover versions of a sound recording required provided they comply with rules regarding notices and royalties. CIS believes that this is potentially problematic as even recording companies have acknowledged that the non-commercial cover versions help in increasing the popularity of the original and therefore help in the growth of the film and music industry and this new law could possibly stop individuals from making such cover versions due to fear of violating the law and therefore harm the film and music industry. Therefore, CIS believes that the National IPR policy should consider measures to provide more rights to the users in order to ensure development of the music and film industry; CIS believes that this is an instance of excessive intellectual property and is harmful to all stakeholders involved.

III.4.6. Relinquishment of Copyright and Creative Commons

III.4.6.1. The amended Section 21 of the Act now only requires a simply public notice from the author to relinquish his copyright as opposed to an application to the registrar of copyrights. CIS believes that this is a positive step as now the requirement under the rules can easily be satisfied by using a Creative Commons Zero license.[23] CIS submits that the National IPR policy should undertake similar steps to encourage the usage of creative commons licenses and thereby facilitate access to knowledge.

III.4.7. Term of Protection of Copyrights

III.4.7.1. The Act provided for an extension of term of copyright for photographs to almost double its earlier duration, [24] CIS believes that this is possibly harmful as it could lead to copyrighted works not entering the public domain for unnecessarily long periods of time and thereby harm progress in science and culture. In this regard CIS further believes that since the term of protections provided under our copyright law for all works extends beyond our international obligations, The National IPR policy should try to ensure that scientific and cultural development are not hindered by excessive terms of protection that go beyond the minimum owed under our international obligations.

III.4.8. Protection Of Rights Management Information

III.4.8.1. The amendment Act provided for protection of rights management information (RMI) and provided for both criminal and civil remedies in instances of unauthorised alteration or removal of RMIs.[25] CIS believes that these provisions are unnecessary as India does not have obligations to do so under international treaties and there is no actual demand for these rights as it is yet unclear how these rights help authors or performers. CIS submits that these provisions increase the costs for users who want to legitimately break these digital locks to obtain accessible formats for the information and that so long as the rights holder does not have an obligation to ensure that their works are accessible, provisions such as these cripple creativity and stunt industry growth.[26] Therefore CIS submits that the National IPR policy should help achieve a balance of concerns of users who want to legitimately break these digital locks on the one hand and the need to prevent digital piracy on the other.

III.4.9. Intermediary Liability

III.4.9.1. CIS submits that due to the IT (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules, 2011, there is a freezing effect on free speech on the internet as these rules are procedurally flawed and go against the principles of natural justice.[27] CIS believes that such a restraint on free speech harms creativity and innovation, to this end CIS submits that the National IPR policy should ensure free speech is not unfairly hindered by rules regarding copyright infringement.

III.4.10. Criminalization of Copyright Infringement

III.4.10.1. Individual non-commercial infringement of copyright is a crime under Section 63A of the Copyright Act [28] and is punishable by imprisonment which can extend to three years or a fine that can extend up to rs. 2,00,000/- CIS believes that this is an instance of excessive intellectual property protection; CIS is of the opinion that the civil remedies available for copyright enforcement are enough for copyright protection and that the criminal remedies under the Copyright Act, 1957 function only to ensure that there are obstacles to free and legitimate use of copyrighted material. CIS believes that such provisions are harmful for innovation within India and impose unnecessary costs on users.[29] Therefore CIS believes the National IPR policy should reconsider the question of criminalisation of copyright infringement and should ensure that any penal consequences are proportional to the act committed.

III.4.11. Concluding Remarks on Copyrights

III.4.11.1. In conclusion while India has what some call the most balanced approach to intellectual property law in the world today, [30] one that balances both the interests of the author and the copyrights holder as well as the end user and the overall public interest, there is room for improvement as far as adapting to the internet age is concerned, especially considering the easy appeal of forming an intellectual property regime that is excessive and in the end harms all the concerned stakeholders.

III.5. Free Trade Agreements (FTAs)

III.5.1. Need for Transparency Regarding FTA Negotiations

III.5.1.1. India has lately been negotiating Free Trade Agreements with several developed nations, these are closed door negotiations and the texts of the meetings are not available to the public. CIS believes that these texts should be made available to the public to ensure transparency and to ensure all stakeholders know of any developments, CIS believes that public knowledge of the positions of various actors in any negotiation process will help ensure that such positions are taken keeping in mind the interests of all stakeholders and will ensure that any outcome from such negotiations will be in national interest.[31] CIS therefore submits that the National IPR policy should encourage transparency with regards to negotiations for free trade agreements.

III.5.2. FTAs with Developed Nations and TRIPS Plus Standards

III.5.2.1. Leaked drafts of the European Union- India FTA negotiations have revealed that provisions on intellectual property protection were extensive and affected the pharmaceuticals sector, these provisions, if agreed upon, could go well beyond India's obligations under the WTO and under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. In fact, developed countries including the US [32] and EU[33] have tried time again and again to encourage developing countries to adopt standards of IP protection in bilateral or regional trade investment agreements that go beyond TRIPS [34]

India has repeatedly indicated to the WTO that it was not willing to commit to an agreement beyond TRIPS.[35] These commitments could include data exclusivity protection measures, ever-greening of patents etc. [36]

CIS believes that despite the growing pressure from developed nations regarding various FTAs,[37] India must hold its ground and ensure that concerns about India's national interest and the difference in the development levels of the European Union or other developed countries and developing countries like India are kept in mind while negotiating obligations under international agreements. Therefore CIS believes that the National IPR policy should ensure that TRIPS plus standards are not acceptable to India as they will undermine our national interest and hinder development at the national level.[38]

III.5.3. Shift from Multilateral Forums to Bilateral FTA negotiations

III.5.3.1. CIS believes that the trend of shift in negotiations from a multilateral forum such as the WIPO or the WTO to a bilateral or a regional forum [39] is harmful as certain flexibilities are built into the TRIPS and therefore multilateral negotiations based on TRIPS will help pursue India's interests better. And therefore when possible, India must prefer negotiations at multilateral forums as opposed to bilateral or regional treaties, CIS believes that the National IPR policy should reflect the same preferences. [40]

IV. Concluding observations

IV.1. On patents, CIS submits that the National IPR policy reconsider software patenting, that encourage open source software, continue and strengthen that compulsory licensing and consider and study alternative licensing mechanisms as means to achieve a balancing of the interests of different stakeholders.

IV.2. On openness, CIS submits that the IPR policy should encourage free and open software in education, governmental agencies etc.

IV.3. On open access to scholarly work, CIS commends the work done by government agencies so far and submits that the IPR policy should encourage open access to scholarly works.

IV.4. On copyright, CIS submits that the IPR policy work toward strengthening and extending fair dealings provisions, supporting international instruments that strengthen fair dealing, encourage compulsory licensing. CIS submits that the IPR policy should work towards ensuring that protections for copyright such as terms of protection, intermediary liability, protection of rights management information, criminalisation of copyright infringement etc., do not harm other legitimate interests of users or unnecessarily restrict free speech.

IV.5. On FTAs, CIS submits that the IPR policy encourage transparency with regard to FTA negotiations, ensure that TRIPS plus standards are not accepted as they would harm national interest and to encourage multilateral negotiations over bilateral free trade agreements.

IV.6. CIS welcomes the initiative of the DIPP to form a National IPR policy, CIS believes that it is essential that such an IPR policy avoid excessive intellectual property rights protection and is formed keeping in mind goals of development and national interest.

IV.7. CIS is thankful to the DIPP for the opportunity to provide comments on the National IPR policy and would be privileged to work with the government on this and other matters in these areas.

[1] www.cis-india.org (Last Accessed: 30/11/14).

[2] The Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and Public Interest concluded after the Global Congress on Intellectual property and Public Interest in August 2011 attended by over 180 experts from 32 countries articulate this position perfectly. Available at: http://infojustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Washington-Declaration.pdf (Last Accessed:29/11/14)

[3] Shashank Singh, Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions: Mapping the Stakeholders' Response, Available at: http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/guidelines-for-examination-of-computer-related-inventions (Last Accessed: 30/11/14).

[4] N.S. Gopalakrishnan, Compulsory License Under Indian Patent Law, MPI Studies on Intellectual Property and Competition Law, Vol.22, 2015, pp.11-42.

[5] Raadhika Gupta, Compulsory Licensing under TRIPS: How Far it Addresses Public Health Concerns in Developing Nations, Journal of Intellectual Property Rights, Vol.15, September 2010, pp.357-363. Available at: http://nopr.niscair.res.in/bitstream/123456789/10211/1/JIPR%2015(5)%20357-363.pdf (Last Accessed: 30/11/14).

[6] Id.

[7] Nehaa Chaudhari, Pervasive Technologies: Patent Pools, Available at: http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-pools (Last Accessed: 30/11/14).

[8] One of the measures along which we could have differential patent strengths could be the time for the invention to reach the market, see, Benjamin N Roin, The case for Tailoring Patent Awards Based on the Time-to-Market of Inventions, UCLA Law Review, Vol.61, 2013, Available at: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/10612849/Case%20for%20Tailoring%20Patent%20Awards%203-15-13.pdf?sequence=1 (Last Accessed: 30/11/14).

[9] Sunil Abraham, Patented Games, Available at: http://cis-india.org/a2k/patented-games (Last Accessed: 30/11/14.

[10] See Nabi Hasan, Issues and Challenges in Open Source Software Environment with Special Reference to India, Available at: http://crl.du.ac.in/ical09/papers/index_files/ical-43_144_317_1_RV.pdf (Last Accessed: 30/11/14).

[11] Section 52(1), the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012.

[12] Section 52(1) (n), the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012.

[13] Zakir Thomas, Overview of Changes to the Indian Copyright Law, Journal of Intellectual Property Rights, Vo.17, July 2012, pp.324-334.

[14] See conclusions of the chair at the 23^rd session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights at the WIPO, Available at: http://www.eifl.net/wipo-sccr23-conclusions (Last Accessed: 30/11/14).

[15] For draft proposal of the treaty see IFLA, Treaty proposal on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives, Available at: http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/copyright/en/sccr_27/sccr_27_2_rev.pdf (Last Accessed: 30/11/14).

[16] See The Draft WIPO Treaty on Exceptions and Limitations for the Persons with Disabilities, Educational and Research Institutions, Libraries and Archives, proposal by the African Group (document SCCR/22/12).Available at: http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/copyright/en/sccr_22/sccr_22_12.pdf (Last Accessed: 30/11/14).

[17] See Section 52(q) of the Copyright Act, 1957.

[18] Section 31 and 31A, the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012.

[19] Section 31D, the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012.

[20] Section 14(1), the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012.

[21] Id.

[22] Section 38B, the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012.

[23] CIS, Comments on Draft Copyright Rules, 2012, available at: http://cis-india.org/a2k/feedback-to-draft-copyright-rules-2012 (Last Accessed: 29/11/14).

[24] See Pranesh Prakash, Analysis of the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2012, Available at: http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/analysis-copyright-amendment-bill-2012

[25] Section 65B, The Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012.

[26] Pranesh Prakash, Technological Protection Measures in the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010, Available at: http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/tpm-copyright-amendment (Last Accessed: 29/11/14).

[27] Rishabh Dara, Intermediary Liability in India: Chilling Effects on Free Expression on the Internet, 2011, Available at: http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/intermediary-liability-in-india.pdf (Last Accessed: 30/11/14).

[28] Section 63A, Copyright Act 1957.

[29] See Right to Share: Principles on Freedom of Expression and Copyright in the Digital Age, Article19, Available at: http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/3716/en/ (Last Accessed: 29/11/14).

[30] V Premanath, S Sivaram, Intellectual Property Systems in India: Progressing towards Greater Maturity and Diversity, Available at: http://iimahd.ernet.in/users/anilg/files/Articles/Emerging%20IPR%20Consciousness,%20vikalpa.pdf (Last Accessed: 29/11/14).

[31] Jan Wouters, Idesbald Goddeeries, Bregt Natens etc, Some Critical Issues in the EU -India Free Trade Agreement Negotiation, Working Paper No.102,KU Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, https://ghum.kuleuven.be/ggs/publications/working_papers/new_series/wp101-110/wp102-wouters-goddeeris-natens.pdf , February 2013, p.16.

Monika Ermert, Lack of Transparency in EU-India FTA Talks Spurs Requests for Halt, ip-watch, Available at: http://www.ip-watch.org/2010/09/03/lack-of-transparency-in-eu-india-fta-talks-spurs-requests-for-halt/ .

[32] The current policy of the US Trade Representative is seen to be reflected in the 2002 Trade Act available here: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-107hr3009enr/pdf/BILLS-107hr3009enr.pdf See HR3009.

[33] The current trade strategy for the EU can be found here http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2014/july/tradoc_152643.pdf .

[34] Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Integrating Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy, Available at: http://www.iprcommission.org/papers/pdfs/final_report/ciprfullfinal.pdf , p.174.

[35] C. Correa, 'Negotiation of a Free Trade Agreement European Union-India: Will India Accept Trips-Plus

Protection?', (2009) Oxfam Deutschland and Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst Analysis,

http://www.oxfam.de/files/20090609_negotiationofafreetradeaggrementeuindia_218kb.pdf .

[36] S. Sharma, 'the EU-India FTA: Critical Considerations in a Time of Crisis', (2009) Centad Working Paper.

[37] Asit Ranjan Mishra, India to negotiate FTAs with emerging market nations, Livemint, Available at: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/RlJNxUXovjNVaRzQt9KXmO/India-to-negotiate-FTAs-with-emerging-market-nations.html .

[38] Sisule F Musungu and Graham Dutfield, Commission Multilateral Agreements and a TRIPS -Plus Word: the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), Available at: http://www.iprsonline.org/ictsd/docs/WIPO_Musungu_Dutfield.pdf.

[39] For Trends, See Beginda Pakpahan, Deadlock in the WTO: What is next? Available at: http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/public_forum12_e/art_pf12_e/art19.htm .

[40] See Amit Sengupta, Do not trade away our lives, Vo.9, No.2, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, 2012, Available at: http://www.issuesinmedicalethics.org/index.php/ijme/article/view/88/1047 .

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-on-proposed-ip-rights-policy-to-dipp

An Article on Kannada Wikipedia

pavanaja — 2014-12-05T01:22:53Z

I wrote an article on Kannada Wikipedia which was published in the Yojana magazine on November 2014 issue.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/yojana-november-2014-pavanaja-article-on-kannada-wikipedia

Now, Tulu set to be promoted through Wikipedia articles

praskrishna — 2014-12-06T01:23:43Z

With the dream of including Tulu in the list of official languages of the country (eighth schedule of the Constitution) remaining far from being realised, enthusiasts seem to be keen to promote the language through Wikipedia.

The article by Govind D. Belgaumkar was published in the Hindu on November 24, 2014.

Beginning on Wednesday, a three-day convention at Sahyadri College will ideate to find means to achieve this goal with the Karnataka Tulu Academy leading the initiative.

The convention will focus on writing Wikipedia articles in Tulu.

Nearly 30 students, mostly from Canara College and some from Aloysius College, and some teachers from Bantwal have registered for the event.

The plan is to ensure that about 25-30 people keep writing in Tulu on Wikipedia.

Some students from the Government Girls PU College in Udupi had already been contributing articles in Tulu, according to the academy’s registrar Chandrahas Rai.

He hoped that the activity would help to pressure authorities to include Tulu in the eighth schedule of the Constitution.

The convention comes ahead of the mega Tulu event – Tuluvere Parba planned in December – and it is hoped that it would awaken the Tulu spirit among the people of the region.

The resource person will be Wikipedia representative and Bengaluru-based Programme Manger, Indian Languages, The Centre for Internet and Society Sri Pavanaja U.B..

Mr. Rai said the articles need to be written regularly to keep the language alive on the platform otherwise it would be notified as inactive.

The convention will be inaugurated by Shivaram Shetty, professor in Mangalore University’s SVP Kannada Study Centre.

President of the academy Janaki Brahmabar, president of Bantwal Tulukuta A.C. Bhandary and Tuluvere Parba’s chief convenor Kadri Navaneet Shetty will be present.

Others who are expected to take part include Mangaluru Tulukuta President Damodar Nisarga, General Secretary of Tuluvere Parba Nitte Shashidhar Shetty.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/the-hindu-november-24-2014-govind-d-belgaumkar-now-tulu-set-to-be-promoted-through-wikipedia-articles

ಭಾಷಣದಿಂದ ಭಾಷೆ ಉಳಿಯಲ್ಲ, ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲೇ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸಿಗುವುದು ಅಗತ್ಯ: ಪವನಜ

praskrishna — 2014-12-06T02:30:29Z

Media coverage of Kannada Wikipedia presentation at Mysuru on November 23, 2014.

The article was published in Just Kannada on November 23, 2014.

ಮೈಸೂರು, ನ.23 : ಧ್ವಜ ಹಾರಿಸಿ ಭಾಷಣ ಮಾಡಿದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆ ಉಳಿಯುವುದಿಲ್ಲ. ಬದಲಿಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡಲ್ಲೇ ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಮಾಹಿತಿಗಳು ಸಿಗುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡುವುದು ಅಗತ್ಯವಿದೆ ಎಂದು ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಭಾರತೀಯ ಭಾಷೆಗಳು, ಸಮಾಜ ಮತ್ತು ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲ ಕೇಂದ್ರದ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ವ್ಯವಸ್ಥಾಪಕ ಡಾ.ಯು.ಬಿ.ಪವನಜ ತಿಳಿಸಿದರು.

ವಿಸ್ಮಯ ಫೌಂಡೇಶನ್ ಭಾನುವಾರ ಕುವೆಂಪುನಗರದ ಉದಯರವಿ ರಸ್ತೆ ಕಲಾಸುರುಚಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಆಯೋಜಿಸಿದ್ದ ಕನ್ನಡ ರಾಜ್ಯೋತ್ಸವ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ `ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯ: ಒಂದು ಪರಿಚಯ’ ಕುರಿತು ಮಾತನಾಡಿದರು.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿನಾಶದ ಹಾದಿಯತ್ತ ಸಾಗುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಇಂದು ಕೇವಲ ಕಥೆ, ಕಾದಂಬರಿಗಳಿಂದ ಮಾತ್ರ ಕನ್ನಡ ಉಳಿಯುವುದಿಲ್ಲ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಂತಹ ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನಗಳನ್ನು ಬಳಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳಬೇಕು. ಕನ್ನಡ ರಾಜ್ಯೋತ್ಸವ, ಸ್ವಾತಂತ್ರ್ಯ ದಿನಾಚರಣೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಧ್ವಜ ಹಾರಿಸಿ, ಭಾಷಣ ಮಾಡಿದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಉಳಿಯುವುದಿಲ್ಲ. ಬದಲಾಗಿ ಅಗತ್ಯ ಮಾಹಿತಿಗಳು ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲೇ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಉಳಿಯುತ್ತದೆ ಎಂದರು. ದೇಶ-ವಿದೇಶಗಳ ಭಾಷೆ, ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತಿಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿದು ಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ನಮ್ಮಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಇದೆ. ಕನ್ನಡಿಗರು ಕನ್ನಡ ಮಾಹಿತಿಗಾಗಿ ಹುಡುಕಾಟ ನಡೆಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಹುಡುಕುವ ಮುನ್ನವೇ ಅಗತ್ಯ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಒದಗಿಸಿದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಉಳಿಸಲು ಸಾಧ್ಯವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ ಎಂದು ತಿಳಿಸಿದರು.

ಭಾರತೀಯ ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ 20ಕ್ಕೂ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಭಾಷೆಗಳಿವೆ. ತಿಂಗಳಿಗೆ 50 ಕೋಟಿ ಹೊಸ ವೀಕ್ಷಕರು ಭೇಟಿ ನೀಡುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಇದರಲ್ಲಿ ಏಳು ಸಾವಿರ ಸಂಪಾದಕರಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಜೊತೆಗೆ ಇದೇ ಮಾದರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಜೂ.2003ರಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯ ಆರಂಭಗೊಂಡಿದ್ದು, ಅಲ್ಲಿಂದ ಇಲ್ಲಿಯವರೆಗೆ 18 ಸಾವಿರ ಲೇಖನಗಳು, 622 ಸಂಪಾದಕರು ಇದ್ದಾರೆ. ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ 22 ಮಂದಿ ಸಕ್ರಿಯ ಸಂಪಾದಕರು ಹಾಗೂ ನಾಲ್ಕು ಮಂದಿ ಅತಿ ಸಕ್ರಿಯ ಸಂಪಾದಕರಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ತಿಂಗಳಿಗೆ 18.50 ಲಕ್ಷ ಜನ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯ ಪುಟ ವೀಕ್ಷಣೆ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಾರೆ ಎಂದು ಮಾಹಿತಿ ನೀಡಿದರು.

ನಾವಷ್ಟೇ ಅಲ್ಲ ಲಕ್ಷಾಂತರ ಮಂದಿ ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನ(ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯ, ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲ)ಕ್ಕೆ ಹೊಂದಿಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಕನ್ನಡ ಕಲಿಯುವವರಿಗೆ, ಭಾಷಾಭಿಮಾನಿಗಳಿಗೆ ಹಾಗೂ ಅಗತ್ಯ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಹುಡುಕುವವರಿಗೆ ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ ಸೃಷ್ಟಿ ಮಾಡಬೇಕು. ಜನರಿಂದ ಜನರಿಗಾಗಿ ಜನರೇ ನಡೆಸುವ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶಕ್ಕೆ ಅಗತ್ಯ ಮಾಹಿತಿಗಳನ್ನು ಅಳವಡಿಕೆ ಮಾಡಬೇಕು ಎಂದ ಅವರು, ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆ ಹಾಗೂ ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತಿ, ಸಂಸ್ಕಾರಗಳನ್ನು ಅನ್ಯರಿಗೂ ಪರಿಚಯಿಸುವ ನಿಟ್ಟಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯವನ್ನು ಬಳಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳಿ ಎಂದು ಸಲಹೆ ನೀಡಿದರು.

ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿವಿ ಕುವೆಂಪು ಕನ್ನಡ ಅಧ್ಯಯನ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆ ನಿವೃತ್ತ ಪ್ರಾಧ್ಯಾಪಕ ಪ್ರೊ.ಆರ್ವಿಯಸ್ ಸುಂದರಂ ಮಾತನಾಡಿ, ಒಂದು ಸಾವಿರ ವರ್ಷಗಳಿಂದ ಒಂದು ವರ್ಷವೂ ಎಡಬಿಡದೆ ಬರೆಯುತ್ತಿರುವ, ಕಲಿಯುತ್ತಿರುವ ಭಾಷೆ ಕನ್ನಡ. ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆಗೆ ತನ್ನದೇ ಆದ ಇತಿಹಾಸ, ಪರಂಪರೆ ಇದೆ. ಒಂದೊಂದು ಶತಮಾನದವರೆಗೂ ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ ಅವಿಚ್ಛಿನ್ನವಾಗಿ ಇದೆ. ಇಂತಹ ಭಾಷೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ನಿರಂತರವಾಗಿ ಪ್ರಚಾರ ಮಾಡಬೇಕು. ಹಾಗೆಯೇ ಆಯಾಯ ಪ್ರದೇಶದಲ್ಲಿ ನೆಲೆಸಿರುವವರು ಅಲ್ಲಿನ ಸ್ಥಳೀಯ ಭಾಷೆಗಳನ್ನು ಕಲಿತುಕೊಳ್ಳಬೇಕು ಎಂದು ಮನವಿ ಮಾಡಿದರು.

ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾನಿಲಯ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ನಿವೃತ್ತ ಕಾರ್ಯನಿರ್ವಾಹಕ ಸಂಪಾದಕ ಡಾ.ಹಾ.ತಿ.ಕೃಷ್ಣೇಗೌಡ ಅಧ್ಯಕ್ಷತೆ ವಹಿಸಿದ್ದರು. ವಿಸ್ಮಯ ಫೌಂಡೇಶನ್ ಸಂಸ್ಥಾಪಕ ಸೋಮಶೇಖರ್ ಇದ್ದರು.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/just-kannada-november-23-2014-kannada-wikipedia-presentation-coverage

Kannada Wikipedia Presentation in Mysuru: Coverage in Prajavani

praskrishna — 2014-12-06T02:40:17Z

Media coverage of Kannada Wikipedia presentation at Mysuru on November 23, 2014.

Scanned version of the report published by Prajavani on November 24, 2014

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/prajavani-november-24-2014-kannada-wikipedia-presentation-in-mysuru

Odia Wikipedia: Article in Dhatri

praskrishna — 2014-12-07T01:34:23Z

This article was published in Dhatri on December 1, 2014.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/article-in-dhatri

A Seminar on E-publishing of Odia Books

praskrishna — 2014-12-07T02:41:26Z

A seminar was organized by Molybtech Technology Solutions on November 30, 2014 for the betterment of Odia language and writers at Bhanja Kala Mandap.

Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the seminar as a speaker and shared his knowledge with the audience.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/seminar-e-publishing-odia-books

Odia Wikisource launched in Odisha capital

praskrishna — 2014-12-07T02:53:32Z

After the success of Odia Wikipedia, it is now the turn of Odia Wikisource to bring the best of Odia literature to the people of Odisha in the language they speak.

The article was published in Odisha Sun Times on November 28, 2014.

Having gone through a rigorous assessment process by the Wikimedia language committee and Wikimedia Foundation’s board before being released last month, the Odia Wikisource was formally launched at Jayadev Bhawan on Friday.

Launching the Odia Wikisource, eminent linguist Padhma Shree Dr Debiprasanna

Pattanayak emphasized the importance of such a project in Odia language to make the best of Odia writing available on computer, mobile and tablet to ensure that youngsters take interest in Odia.

“e-books are the key to take Odia to the masses, especially those who are outside Odisha and have no access to libraries,” he said.

Speaking on the occasion, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, Editor of leading Odia daily ‘Sambad’ said; “Internet should be treated as a friend of our language rather than as an enemy.”

He announced the relicensing of 19 books published by Ama Odisha under a Creative Commons Share Alike license that will be digitized on Wikisource.

Patnaik evinced keen interest in collaborating with the Odia Wikimedia community in the future for such language and cultural work.

Presiding over the function, noted poet and thinker Dr Haraprasad Das advised the youth for filling the gaps in the Odia language using internet.

“Odia Wikisource is connecting me with my roots, my language and culture”, said Pankajbala Sarangi, who has made the highest of 1200 edits on Odia Wikisource.

The credit for the most extensive work on Odia book digitization, however, goes to Bhubaneswar based non-profit Srujanika that digitized about 740 books.

Started two years ago as an incubator project, the Odia Wikisource is now live on the internet at or.wikisource.org.

The project now houses many precious books including writings of noted authors like Fakir Mohan Senapati, Upendra Bhanj and the entire Odia Bhagabata.

It includes most periodicals that were published between1850-1950. Odia Wikisource will further this work by going one step ahead in digitizing books in the form of text in Unicode so that they appear in a search engine search in Odia language.

It allows readers to read books from computers, mobiles and tablets, even permitting them to print and use the content elsewhere. These books are way lighter than the scanned books. This is making a way for audio books.

Books for which copyright has lapsed and many rare books could be digitized and preserved for the future.

Apart from old and valuable books, books by renowned and contemporary authors like Padma Shree Debiprasanna Pattanayak, Ramakrushna Nanda, Dr Jagannath Mohanty, Dr Subrat Prusty, Bharat Majhi and Nirmala Kumari Mohapata, and many other authors have been taken by the Odia Wikisource team to digitize.

In collaboration with Wikimedians from Bhubaneswar, Bangalore based non-profit Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge program was instrumental in training the faculty of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS). “50 students from KISS have digitized 4 books and are continuing to contribute more”, says Preetinanda Roy.

Wikimedians also converted Odia Bhagabata to Unicode by using the source text from Odia.org. “We are aiming to bring more rare books and manuscripts in Odia in the near future,” said Odia Wikimedian Mrutyunjaya Kar.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/odisha-sun-times-november-28-2014-odia-wikisource-launched-in-odisha-capital

Technology and Gender Based Violence

praskrishna — 2014-12-09T16:32:34Z

Rohini Lakshane was a speaker at this event organized by the Bachchao Project on November 24, 2014. Rohini spoke about various strategies that women use to respond to online harassment, such as reporting the abuser, and enlisting support from online followers, or friends or family in order to deal with the abuser.

Click to download the event report (PDF).

Date : 25/11/2014
Time : 6:15pm to 8:15 pm
No. of attendees : 14 ppl
Organisations Involved: The Bachchao Project , CIS , Amnesty International , Breakthrough , Take Back the Tech.Venue : Center for Internet and Society , Domlur

The Bachchao Project is a community effort to build Open Source Technologies with the following aims :

1. Personal Safety with focus on women.

2. Empowering prevention of Gender Based Violence.

3. Enabling fight against Gender Based Violence.

On 25th November we honored the UN’s “ End Violence against Women” day by conducting an event where we invited various NGOs and experts to come join us in our effort by :

1. showcasing how technology has been used to fight gender based violence

2. talk about how technology has added more mediums for gender based violence

3. And discuss how we could make better solutions to fight .

Talks given :

A show case of The Bachchao Project initiatives :

Speakers : Chinmayi S K , Ankitha Herurkar and Yogesh Londhe.

The Bachchao Project talked about their applications : ( thebachchaoproject.org)

Bachchao - A distress application used to send SOS msgs and record evidence in case of a distress
Pehara - A community monitoring system. Which sends distress and alert information in case of any distress reported by anyone in the community to friend , family and the police
i-rode : An Application used to rate public transit and display the safety of a public transit.
Gender Sensitivity of public space : an initiative to provide an interface to rate gender sensitivites of public spaces based on certain questions.
readytoreport.in, an initiative by Amnesty International :

Speaker : Gopika Bashi

Gopika Bashi from Amnesty International spoke about their effort to educate and encourage women to file an FIR when an incident occurs to them . readytoreport.in is a website which educates about all the legal option and the rights of a abused .It also provide answers to their minor questions.

How Breakthrough is using technology to solve problems :

Speaker : Manoj M

Manoj spoke about two of the many initiatives breakthrough has undertaken .

Board the Bus Campaign : This was a gamification solution used by breakthrough to encourage using public transport by women. Where in for every action the woman takes they were given some points which could be

converted into incentives.

Trainer App : This was used to interact with the various trainer at breakthrough who conduct sexual harassment seminars in various States of the country.

Online Harassment in the Indian context :

Speakers :(Rohini Lakshane and Chinmayi S K )

The speakers talked about various forms of Online Harassment . They spoke about the various contextual forms of Harassment in india because of the cultural practices . That included not understanding consent and not understanding the online spaces are an extension of Physical spaces.

Rohini spoke about various strategies that women use to respond to online harassment, such as reporting the abuser, and enlisting support from online followers, or friends or family in order to deal with the abuser. Very few women take legal recourse due to lack of faith in the law, or the time-consuming, emotionally taxing and financially draining nature of legal processes, or negative experiences with law enforcement and the police. Rohini also spoke about how laws don’t necessarily take into account the consent of women and that there are grey areas where it is difficult to distinguish between sexual expression, obscenity and pornography using the existing legal framework in India.

Chinmayi also spoke about take back the tech and how it is fighting online harassment.

Discussion Takeaways :

Panelists :

Ushashri TS - MD , Manhattan Associates , India

Gopika Bashi -Women's Rights Researcher & Campaigner at Amnesty International India

Rohini Lakshane - Researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society

Manoj M - Media and technology Consultant at breakthrough

“one plug fits all” - might not be a adage that might not be applicable for technology solutions in gender based violence
Response of the application or the device needs to be time bound depending upon the application need not be real time always
Application for crisis should be time bound , should consider the limitations like battery and should provide as much accuracy in terms of location.
Technology should take into consideration environments ( rural vs urban) , Cultural tendencies and interactions .
Applications needs to simple to use to make it universal
Validation should be an important part of the technology since there is a chance of a lot of garbage data .
Attitudinal changes will support the usage of technology in a proper way esp in a country like India .
Similar apps for the same purpose without seriously considering the quality of service and sustainability can be harmful .
Everything cannot be an application .
Technology needs acts like a service provider in solving the issues.
There is need and use of technology in counselling and education.
Some technologies should not be done like online FIR since then the authorities might shy away from responsibilities. But some people might have a need for such technologies hence the implementation and validation must be thought through. Also the police would not welcome digital avenues to file FIRs. This is because they try to gauge if the complaint is false by speaking with a complainant who pays a visit to the police station. This is their way of weeding out false and frivolous complaints, and sometimes of thwarting genuine complaints because more FIRs mean more work for the police. They lose this option when FIRs are submitted through digital channels.

Harass Map Egypt is an good example of how technological projects should be implemented with 1000 volunteers working on ground tirelessly to ensure the repeated mapping and stopping of street harassment.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/technology-gender-based-violence

‘Tulu Wikipedia’ in incubation stage, 600 articles uploaded, says U.B. Pavanaja

praskrishna — 2014-12-07T03:21:11Z

In all, 600 articles have been uploaded to the Tulu Wikipedia which is still in its incubation stage, according to U.B. Pavanaja, Wikipedia representative and Programme Officer, The Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru.

The article by Ravi Prasad Kamila was published in the Hindu on November 26, 2014. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave his inputs.

Speaking at a workshop on writing articles in Tulu, using Kannada script, for Wikipedia at Sahyadri College of Engineering and Management here on Wednesday, he said that since 2007 till this January there were 135 Tulu articles. The remaining 465 articles were added in the last over nine months.

Workshops on writing articles in Tulu for Wikipedia organised in Udupi and Mangaluru had helped in adding more articles.

Mr. Pavananja, originally hailing from Sullia in Dakshina Kannada, said that if Tulu Wikipedia was to be kept alive at least 50 to 60 articles would have to be uploaded a month and it required at least 10 dedicated writers.

If one wants to write articles in Tulu, he or she would have to log on to bilty.com/tuluwiki and later register there like registering while creating a new e-mail id. Later one can write, edit or read articles written in Tulu using Kannada script.

Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy had organised the workshop as a prelude to the three-day ‘Vishwa Tuluvere Parba’ (Global Tulu Festival) scheduled at the college from December 12.

President of the academy M. Janaki Brahmavar requested the participants to write articles about Tulu language and culture and about the coming festival and upload.

One can contact Mr. Pavanaja through pavanaja@gmail.com.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/the-hindu-november-26-2014-ravi-prasad-kamila-tulu-wikipedia-in-incubation-stage

PERVASIVE TECHNOLOGIES PROJECT WORKING DOCUMENT SERIES: DOCUMENT 1 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY FOR A PAPER ON COMPETITION LAW + IPR + ACCESS TO < $100 MOBILE DEVICES

nehaa — 2015-10-04T02:51:06Z

This blog post is the research methodology for my research paper under the Pervasive Technologies Project. This is a work in progress and is likely to be modified from time to time.

See a subsequent version titled Pervasive Technologies: Working Document Series - Research Questions and a Literature Review on the Actor-Network Theory

Preliminary

The realization of the promise of the sub hundred dollar mobile device as a facilitator of access to knowledge is contingent inter alia on its availability in the market place. In turn, the market availability of the sub hundred dollar mobile device is influenced by the existence of an enabling environment for producers to produce, and consumers to consume. From a regulatory perspective, the enabling environment itself is a function of existing laws and policies, and the 'developmental effects' of certain laws and policies (Saraswati, 2012).

This research paper under the Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Market Place Project ("PT Project") examines one such legal and policy lever and the role of a regulator in the development of an enabling environment for access to sub hundred dollar mobile devices. This paper is founded on four assumptions: first, that access to sub hundred dollar mobile devices is influenced by their price; second, that the question of access necessitates conversation between the intellectual property regime and several other actors, sites and tools; third, that one of the fundamental goals of regulatory reform is the creation of a 'stable, open and future- proof environment' (Guermazi and Satola, 2005) that encourages access to these devices; and fourth, that there exist public law implications of intellectual property that justify the involvement of State actors and regulators in matters that may arise out of private transactions.

Research Questions

This research paper will examine whether there is a role to be played by one regulator, that is, the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”), in this narrative of innovation, intellectual property and access to sub hundred dollar mobile devices. Specifically, the following research questions will be addressed:

First, what is the relationship between intellectual property and competition law? Second, what are the competition law/antitrust concerns that arise around the licensing of intellectual property (standard essential patents)? Third, can existing mechanisms in competition law address concerns around the licensing of standard essential patents on sub hundred dollar devices, and is competition law a viable solution to address this issue? If so, which ones? Fourth, given the frequency of these litigations, is there a role to be played by an ex-post regulator, such as the CCI, or is there a need for ex-ante regulation?

Research Objects

In an attempt to address these research questions, this paper will examine the role of the Competition Commission of India and the Indian Judiciary. This paper will also examine the role of similarly placed institutions in the United States of America as well as some member states of the European Union.

This research paper will also examine select tools and sites sought to be used to create an enabling environment to facilitate access to these sub hundred dollar mobile devices: first, principles, legal frameworks and provisions of competition law/antitrust law; second, all relevant judicial decisions.

Research Method

First , this research paper will begin with establishing the case for the intervention of the regulator and/or the judiciary in the sub hundred dollar mobile device market by undertaking a review of primary and secondary literature [1]("literature"). Second, also through a literature review, the research will be contextualized to India in terms of the market, the actors involved and the legal framework. Third, a cross jurisdictional comparative legal search will be undertaken to understand the potential areas of intervention for the judiciary and the Competition Commission of India based on existing legal disputes in other jurisdictions; and the possible challenges that might ensue. Fourth, in a scenario building exercise, an attempt will be made to outline the role that the judiciary and the regulator might play in India, in order to ensure access to sub hundred dollar mobile devices is not impeded by litigation around standard essential patents.

Generally, in the writing of this paper, inputs will be sought from experts including MHRD Chair Professors, legal practitioners in India, academics in India and abroad and members of relevant departments of the Indian Government.

Research Communication

This research will be communicated through a series of blog posts- one every month from December, 2014 to December, 2015. A preliminary draft of a research paper will be produced by December, 2015, tentatively to be presented at the 4th Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest, New Delhi. The final output will be a research paper.

References

Bouthenia Guermazi and David Satola, Creating the "Right" Enabling Environment for ICT, in Robert Schware (ed.), E-development: From Excitement to Effectiveness (2005, World Bank Publications).
Jyoti Saraswati, Dot. Compradors- Power and Policy in the Development of the Indian Software Industry (2012, Pluto Press)

[1] Unless otherwise specified, for the purposes of this document, primary and secondary literature includes academic articles and books, newspaper articles and opinion pieces, blog posts, case law and other legal provisions.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/methodology-sub-hundred-dollar-mobile-devices-and-competition-law

Methodology: Access to Music through the Mobile

maggie — 2014-12-08T16:22:41Z

Like its predecessors the vinyl, the cassette tape, the CD, and the MP3 player, the mobile phone as the most recent musical carrier have been well documented to be a disruptive technology, one which has made earlier carrier technologies virtually obsolete. The mobile phone has transformed the music industry and its supporting infrastructure — dramatically altering the roles of various intermediaries and stakeholders who enable the creation, distribution, and consumption of musical content.

Context

For the first time in 13 years, the music business is growing again, with consumption of musical content at an all time high due to innovations which have provided more affordable and convenient platforms for accessing music than ever before. These include web-based and mobile-based applications which have arisen to compete with piracy through "free", "feels-like-free" and "fermium" business models.[1]

Given the pervasiveness of the mobile phone, especially in India where it is the only mode of access for over 50% of the population [2], these innovations along with expanding broadband and data services seems to be a mark of success in bringing access to music and other media content to those formerly priced out, and geographically excluded from the legal market.

However, Indian web and mobile-based applications such as Gaana and Saavn, and its U.S. counterparts like Spotify and Pandora have continuously operated at a loss, often sustained by venture capitalist funding or a larger corporate backing.[3] Although many online platforms, such as the recently shut down Flyte (funded by Flipkart) cite piracy as the official reason for its closure, industry insiders have allegedly noted exorbitant licensing fees demanded by rights holders as the case.[4]

Research Problems

1. It is uncertain whether legal access to affordable music through the mobile will remain.

As an access issue, this is problematic due to the potential disappearances of these platforms, which have with varying success provided an alternative to unauthorized file sharing while increasing the ease of consumers' access to a larger volume and variety of legal content. Some of these applications provide a "direct-to-fan" platform for musicians to upload their own music online without having to 'break in' to a relatively closed entertainment industry, particularly in the Indian market where the mass majority of music is dominated by the film industry. Access to increased volume and variety is also not a guarantee, particularly in light of some musicians' indignation over the intermediaries' profits from their content, and the little revenue received in return.

2. Numerous stakeholders are entering the technologically advancing, digital music industry resulting in uncertainty of optimal business models and increased complexity of revenue and royalty distribution.
Thus, given evolving business models due to the transitioning physical to digital music industry, no consensus has yet been found on which platforms or revenue models offer an optimal solution for access to, and production of music. The potential for monetization in all levels of the value chain - from production, to content aggregation, to content distribution, and consumption -- has resulted in an increase in the number of intermediaries, further complicating the ecosystem.

All stakeholders fulfill different roles in the industry while expressing the common challenge of 'monetization'.

Web and mobile based content distributors are attempting to find the right price points at which Indian consumers are willing to pay, particularly in a market whose billing model is largely based on mobile credits and cash-on-delivery since only 1% of the population have access to credit. [5] Globally, criticisms for streaming distributors like Spotify are highly publicized, not paying enough royalty to artists despite claims that 70% of their revenue is spent on content licensing.[6]

Content aggregators are attempting to monetize services such as music fingerprinting, meta-data tagging, and other analytics tracking to identify and capitalize on consumer behavior and consumption trends. Meanwhile, telecom companies and mobile phone manufacturers are attempting to provide integrated services and music bundle packages to increase the interoperability of these platforms for a more frictionless experience for consumers.

Content owners - vast majority being music labels -- are attempting to maintain their relevance in the industry through its powerful artist and repertoire marketing role, amidst criticisms that stakeholders like multi-channel networks and self-publishing content distributors (i.e. SoundCloud, Youtube, etc.) will deem it irrelevant. Many distributors globally note the vast ownership of content leading to the potential abuse of bargaining power, as exemplified by the Competition Commission of India's recent ruling that Super Cassette Industries' (or T-Series, who own 70% of Hindi film music) practiced unfair and discriminatory charging practices for a radio broadcasters due to their demand for minimum guarantees.[7]

The content producers -- lyricists, composers, performers, and more are struggling to monetize and finance the production of their music. Down the valuation stream, the contractual agreements between content owners and distributors affect the livelihoods of these artists. India's music industry is particularly unique in that the vast majority of content are film music, which means the common financier of music production are the film industry, rather than music labels or publishing houses. Additionally, given a one-time, work-for-hire agreement was commonplace in the Indian film industry during music production, a contractual agreement stipulating royalty division was slow to materialize.

3. Continued violation of law due to lack of legitimacy of Copyright Board, Copyright societies, and 2012 Copyright Amendment.

The entire music ecosystem is governed by the framework of copyright, which necessitates legal mechanisms to ensure proper regulation and balance between the protection of rights holders and access to content for consumers.

The 2012 Copyright Amendment attempted to address the imbalance of bargaining power through preventing the first author's transfer of right to royalty, amongst others. This amendment was also passed in response to alleged corruption and collusion between the content owners (music labels), various judiciaries, and the former copyright societies (Indian Performing Rights Societies ("IPRS") and the Indian Phonographic Publishing Limited ("PPL")), resulting in an absence of royalty payments to lyricists and composers for many years.[8]

Despite this, the Copyright Amendment have not been as effective in correcting the issues on the ground, and are still allegedly being circumvented via advanced royalties, backdated agreements, and waiver of performance royalty rights.[9] Other inefficiencies cited have been poor transparency of royalty payments, lack of publicly available analytics on web and mobile-based platforms, and untimely responses by the Copyright Board to conduct investigations into the allegations.

Amidst these allegations, some industry analysts also claim the Copyright framework itself needs to catch up with the technological potential that the internet, and these new services provide. This may be an alternative perspective to be explored.

*(Tentative) Research Questions and Methodology

Thus, given uncertainty of the sustainability of affordable, legal access; the increasing complexity of business models and royalty distribution, and the continued violation of Copyright law due to lack of legitimacy, the policy question is:
How can legal and institutional mechanisms ensure an enabling environment for access to, and production of music for all mobile phone users in India?

"Legal mechanisms" - Copyright Act, Copyright Board, licensing mechanisms
"Institutional mechanisms" - Copyright societies, music industry norms, corporate policies
"Access" - equitable, fair, easy access to quality and quantity of music
- Potential barriers to access (to music, through mobile):
- Political: Legal constraints (Goonda Act?), intermediaries prevent copying, licensing bodies
- Economic: Lack of availability of older repertoire, access to mobile device
- Social: Use or access of materials involving loss of privacy, lack of quality production
- Technological: TPMs, compatibility, broadband/data access, payment gateways, geographic barriers, lack of net neutrality

Access necessitates "production" - ability to create content with little entry barriers; balance right of artists to earn, and consumer access

Barriers to production and distribution:
Uncertainty of business models in age of digital music
Ineffectiveness of Copyright regulation: Copyright societies, Copyright board
Controversy surrounding Copyright Act
Lack of finance/income -- intermediaries taking share of pie ?? Inefficiencies in music industry?

"Mobile phone users in India" - smartphone users able to access web and mobile based platforms

How do the stakeholders in the Indian music industry work together to facilitate access to music via the mobile phone?

Who are the stakeholders of the music industry in India?
What are their roles and their objectives?
How have their roles changed given the digital transition of the music industry?

Method: Conduct a stakeholder analysis mapping the physical to digital transition. Secure information via literature review (academic and grey) and expert interviews secured via snowball sampling.

Content Creation

Lyricists/composers (film, non-film)
Performers (film, nom-film)
Film Producer
Sound Producer
Publisher
Self-production (Remix artists, DJs, independents)

Content Aggregation and Distribution
- Content Aggregation:

Music labels (International/film/indie)
Mobile aggregators (VAS companies)
Tech aggregators (back-end for digital platforms: meta-data tagging, analytics, etc.)

Content distribution (digital)

Online stores (e.g. iTunes)

Mobile/Web-based

Webcast/Radio (e.g. MumbaiOne Radio)
Digital Stores (e.g. Amazon, iTunes, eMusic, Google Play, Flyte, OKListen, etc.)
Interactive streaming (e.g. 8tracks, Gaana, Hungama, Raaga, Rdio, Spotify, etc.)
Bundled telco-music stores (formerly Nokia MixMusic)

Copyright Board
Copyright societies (e.g. IPRS (Indian Performing Rights Society), PPL (Phonographics Performance Limited, ISRA (Indian Singers Rights Association))
Associations (e.g. MCAI (Music Composers Association of India), SIMCA (South Indian Music Companies Association), IMI (Indian Music Industry - ass. of producers), etc.)

Financiers:
- Venture capitalists
- Brands/advertisers
- Corporate backing
- Multi-channel networks
  - Technical intermediaries
    - Telecom operators
    - Internet service providers
    - Data providers
    - Payment gateway providers

Mobile phone manufacturers

Consumers

Types of music listeners (Ovum research taxonomy)
- Active fans (lean forward/niche)
- Core enthusiasts (lean forward/mainstream)
- Indie followers (lean back/niche)
- Lean-back listeners (lean back/mainstream)
Class distinction / price sensitivity?

What are the current business models for web and mobile-based content distributors? How does this impact each stakeholder in the music industry?

What are the new business models of the digital music industry in India?
- How are the new intermediaries/stakeholders in the web/mobile targeted music industry impacting business models?
- Literature review (media, industry reports) and expert interviews

What is the revenue distribution in the music production value chain for the web/mobile-based platforms in India?
- Method: International comparison of new digital music business models worldwide:
- Online MOOC Course & lectures (Coursera - West Virginia University ; YouTube - Future of Music Coalition[11] )
- Literature review (academic, white, grey, media, industry repots, etc.)
- Method: Replicate FMC's study for Indian context: Music and How Money Flows[12]

Who are the consumers that access music via mobile/web-based platforms in India?

Is there a socio-cultural-economic dimension distinguishing those willing and able to pay? Who actually pays and how much?
- Method: Literature review, expert interviews, surveys??
- Are there different levels of musical engagement which translate to consumer behavior (active fans, core enthusiasts, indie follower, lean back listeners) and subsequent willingness to pay? What percentage of listeners fall in each category in India?
  - Method: Questionnaire to current users of web/mobile-based music distributors supplemented by expert interviews
  - What kind of economic good is digital music in India? Inferior, luxury, normal? Complementary, substitute? Public, merit, private, free?
    - Method: Literature review, theoretical economic analysis supplemented by user survey and expert interviews

Considering the stakeholders in the digital music industry, consumer behavior in India, how should music copyrights be regulated to provide optimal access of music through the mobile to consumers and fair renumeration to first authors?

What role do legal mechanisms currently play in the distribution of royalty revenue in the music industry (on the ground)?
- Method: Mapping of copyright processes and agreements (oral, contractual, or otherwise) between stakeholders in the music industry, noting specifically role of Copyright Board, and (former) Copyright societies; expert interviews
What role do codified laws (2012 Copyright Amendment, case law) stipulate should be the legal mechanisms to distribute royalty in the music industry?
- Method: Legal literature review, expert interviews
- How have the 2012 Copyright Amendment impacted the stakeholders in the music industry? Are the laws effectively enforced? Has the Copyright Amendment been designed/defined/articulated in an optimal way for all stakeholders? Why or why not?
- Method: Literature review
- How should copyright be organized? Who should distribute royalty revenues? What process?
  - Method: Consider stakeholder analysis, context of India music/film industry, consumer demand and price-sensitivity, and conduct cross-jurisdictional comparison
  - What industry norms should be set for a more transparent, efficient supply chain to ensure rights holders receive fair compensation?
    - Method: International comparison of industry norms for copyright organization and distribution

[1].Amba Kak, Fighting Free with Free - The Legal Music Market in India as a Response to the Digital Age (Centre for Internet and Society, to be published.)

[2].Avendus Capital, India’s Mobile Internet: The Revolution Has Begun: An Overview of How Mobile Internet Is Touching the Lives of Millions, Industry (Avendus Capital Private Limited, September 2013), http://www.avendus.com/Files/Fund%20Performance%20PDF/Avendus_Report-India’s_Mobile_Internet-2013.pdf.

[3].Amba Kak, Fighting Free with Free - The Legal Music Market in India as a Response to the Digital Age (Centre for Internet and Society, to be published.)

[4].Nikhil Pahwa, “Why Flipkart Shut Down Flyte Music,” News and Analysis of Digital Media in India, MediaNama, (May 29, 2013), http://www.medianama.com/2013/05/223-why-flipkart-shut-flyte-music/.

[5].Reserve Bank of India, as cited in IFPI, India: Nearing an all-time high http://www.ifpi.org/india.php

[6].James Duffett-Smith, Music Licensing Study: Notice and Request for Public Comment (United States Copyright Office 2014).

[7].Ashok Chawla, M.L. Tayal, and S.L. Bunker, HT Media Limited v. Super Cassettes Industries Limited (Competition Commission of India 2014).

[8].Prashant Reddy, “Did the Big Music Companies on IPRS & PPL Collude to Deny Lyricists and Composers Crores of Rupees in ‘ringtone Royalties’ – An Investigation,” http://spicyip.com/2011/02/did-big-music-companies-on-iprs-ppl.html, SpicyIP, (February 14, 2011)

[9].Anonymous, “Ghost Post: The myriad ways in which the Copyright Amendment Act, 2012 is being circumvented” http://spicyip.com/2014/01/ghost-post-the-myriad-ways-in-which-the-copyright-amendment-act-2012-is-being-circumvented.html, SpicyIP, (January 18, 2014)

[10].https://www.coursera.org/course/gpsmusic

[11]. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL471E012D03E9BA03

[12]. https://futureofmusic.org/blog/2013/06/18/music-and-how-money-flows

Click to download the PDF

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/methodology-access-to-music-through-mobile

November 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-12-15T13:27:04Z

We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcome you to the eleventh issue of the newsletter (November 2014).

Highlights

On 13 November, 2014, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion had released a Call for Suggestions for India's proposed National IPR Policy. CIS sent its comments.
As part of the Pervasive Technologies we published four methodology documents: Rohini Lakshané wrote on Patent Landscaping for the Indian Mobile Device market ; Anubha Sinha wrote on Intellectual Property in Mobile Application Development in India ; Maggie Huang wrote on Access to Music through the Mobile; and Nehaa Chaudhari wrote on Sub Hundred Dollar Mobile Devices and Competition Law .
Odisha's most circulated newspaper Sambad has collaborated with CIS-A2K to relicense 19 books published by its sister concern "Ama Odisha".
Vipul Kharbanda in a blog entry examines the relationship between privacy and transparency in the context of the right to information in India .
Geetha Hariharan in a blog entry explores what India's ITU proposal means for Internet Governance.
Pranesh Prakash wrote an article in the Economic Times exploring net neutrality.
In her final blog post on the mapping exercise undertaken by CIS-RAW, P.P.Sneha summarises some of the key concepts and terms that emerged as significant in the discourse around Digital Humanities in India.

►Job

Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge - Institutional Partnerships): CIS is seeking applications for the post of Programme Officer for its Access to Knowledge (A2K) Programme. The position will be based in its Bangalore office. Programme Officer will collaboratively work with the A2K Team and would report to the Programme Director, Access to Knowledge at CIS.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The publication has been finalised and is currently in the process of being printed. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Update

November 2014 Report (Suman Dogra; November 30, 2014).

Upcoming Event

Training in Use of eSpeak with Malayalam (co-organized by CIS, DAISY Forum of India and Chakshumathi Assistive Technology Centre; Trivandrum; January 24 - 25, 2015, Trivandrum).

►Other

Blog Entry

Central Guidelines and Schemes (Anandhi Viswanathan; November 6, 2014).

Access to Knowledge

As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) 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.

Submission

Comments on the Proposed Intellectual Property Rights Policy to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (Pranesh Prakash, Nehaa Chaudhari, Anubha Sinha and Amulya P.; November 30, 2014).

Blog Entries

MHRD IPR Chairs - Underutilization of Funds and Lack of Information Regarding Expenditures (Amulya Purushothama, November 19, 2014).

Participation in Events

Ubiquity, Mobility, Globality: Charting Directions in Mobile Phone Studies (Organized by Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; November 6 - 7, 2014). Nehaa Chaudhari made a presentation on Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace.
Countering US pressures on India's IP regime (Organized by Lawyer's Collective; November 16, 2014). Anubha Sinha attended the event.
Technology and Gender Based Violence (Organized by the Bachchao Project; November 24, 2014). Rohini Lakshané was a speaker at the event. She spoke about various strategies that women use to respond to online harassment, such as reporting the abuser, and enlisting support from online followers, or friends or family in order to deal with the abuser.

►Pervasive Technology

Blog Entries

Methodology: Patent Landscaping (Rohini Lakshané; November 10, 2014).
Methodology: Intellectual Property in Mobile Application Development in India (Anubha Sinha; November 17, 2014).
Methodology: Access to Music through the Mobile (Maggie Huang; November 18, 2014).
Methodology: Sub Hundred Dollar Mobile Devices and Competition Law (Nehaa Chaudhari; November 25, 2014).

►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).

Op-Ed

Odia Wikisource, its Potential (Subhashish Panigrahi, The Samaja, November 17, 2014).

Blog Entries

55 Works of Iconic Indian writer released under Free Licence to benefit Wikisource (T. Vishnu Vardhan, November 13, 2014).
Odia author Nirmala Kumari Mohapatra's 21 books relicensed under CC-by-SA 4.0 (Subhashish Panigrahi, November 17, 2014).
Nineteen Books Published by Ama Odisha Relicensed under CC-by-SA 4.0 (Subhashish Panigrahi, November 25, 2014).

News and Media Coverage

CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

ಭಾಷಣದಿಂದ ಭಾಷೆ ಉಳಿಯಲ್ಲ, ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲೇ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸಿಗುವುದು ಅಗತ್ಯ: ಪವನಜ (Just Kannada; November 23, 2014).
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation in Mysuru (Prajavani; November 24, 2014).
Now, Tulu set to be promoted through Wikipedia articles (Hindu; November 24, 2014).
'Tulu Wikipedia' in incubation stage, 600 articles uploaded, says U.B. Pavanaja (Ravi Prasad Kamila; Hindu; November 26, 2014).
Odia Wikisource launched in Odisha capital (Odisha Sun Times; November 28, 2014).
Odia Wikisource aims to bring valuable and rare books on the Internet (Odisha Diary; November 28, 2014).

Event Co-organized

Odia Wikisource Sabha 2014 (Co-organized by CIS-A2K and Odia Wikimedia Community; November 28, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

Participation in Event

A Seminar on E-publishing of Odia Books (Organized by Molybtech Technology Solutions; November 30, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi was a speaker.

►Openness

Blog Entry

Privacy vs. Transparency: An Attempt at Resolving the Dichotomy (Sunil Abraham with feedback and inputs from Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Elonnai Hickok, Bhairav Acharya and Geetha Hariharan; November 14, 2014).

News and Media Coverage

Getting Strategic about Openness and Privacy (Tim Davies; Open Data Research Lead at Web Foundation; November 3, 2014).

Participation in Event

Content co-ordination for the Panel Discussion on Crypto-Currencies (organized by the Law and Technology Society; November 15, 2014). Sharath Chandra Ram was a panelist and made a presentation Scalability and Security Issues in Distributed Trust based Cryto-Currency Systems like BITCOIN

Internet Governance

►Privacy

As part of our Surveillance and Freedom: Global Understandings and Rights Development (SAFEGUARD) project with Privacy International we are engaged in enhancing respect for the right to privacy in developing countries. During the month we published the following blog entries:

Blog Entries

White Paper on RTI and Privacy V1.2 (Vipul Kharbanda; November 9, 2014).
Introduction: About the Privacy and Surveillance Roundtables (Manoj Kurbet; November 27, 2014).

Event Organized

IOCOSE's talk at CIS (CIS, Bangalore; November 27, 2014). There was a presentation of the work of the artists group IOCOSE, current artists in residence at T.A.J./SKE Residency.

Upcoming Event

CPDP 2015 : The eighth international conference on computers, privacy and data protection will be held in Brussels from January 21 to 23, 2015. CIS is a moral supporter of CPDP.

Participation in Events

E-Consultation on Cyber Security, Justice, and Governance Begins! (Organized by the Hague Institute for Global Justice; November 4, 2014). Sunil Abraham facilitated the e-consultation on "Internet access, the freedom of expression online, and development in the Global South".
Learning Forum: Transparency and Human Rights in the Digital Age (Organized by Global Network Initiative; November 6, 2014). Pranesh Prakash gave a talk on transparency reports and their use and abuse in India; the Intermediary Liability Rules in India (and its non-provision of any transparency mechanism); and the need for transparency in private speech regulation, not just governmental speech regulation.
Fourth Discussion Meeting of the Expert Committee to Discuss the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill (Organized by the Department of Biotechnology; New Delhi; November 10, 2014). Sunil Abraham was unable to participate because of technical problems.
Ground Zero Summit 2014 (Organized by India Infosec Consortium; November 13-14, 2014). Geetha Hariharan participated in this event.
Privacy, security and surveillance: tackling international dilemmas and dangers in the digital realm (Organized by Wilton Park; November 17-19, 2014). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist in the session "Beyond the familiar: how do other countries deal with security and surveillance oversight?"

►Free Speech

Under a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, CIS is doing research on the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government and contribute studies, reports and policy briefs to feed into the ongoing debates at the national as well as international level. As part of the project we bring you the following outputs:

Blog Entries

Good Intentions, Recalcitrant Text - II: What India's ITU Proposal May Mean for Internet Governance (Geetha Hariharan; November 1, 2014).
India's Statement at ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, 2014 (Geetha Hariharan; November 4, 2014).

Newspaper Article

The Socratic debate: Whose internet is it anyway? (Pranesh Prakash; Economic Times; November 18, 2014).

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

Twitter users find several accounts suspended for unknown reasons (Vasudha Venugopal; Economic Times; November 2, 2014).
Several Indian Twitter users' accounts suspended due to tech glitch (Silky Malhotra; digit; November 3, 2014).
Game release cancelled over gay character (Jaison Lewis; Mumbai Mirror; November 19, 2014).
Leave the Net Alone (Businessworld; November 25, 2014).

Digital Humanities

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

Blog Entry

Mapping Digital Humanities in India - Concluding Thoughts (P.P.Sneha; November 30, 2014).

About CIS

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

► Follow us elsewhere

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

► Support Us

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

► Request for Collaboration:

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

CIS is grateful to its 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/november-2014-bulletin

An Analysis of the Comments by World Blind Union and the International Publishers Association

Rahul Cherian — 2012-03-30T07:34:07Z

Rahul Cherian provides an analysis of the comments by the World Blind Union and the International Publishers Association after the 23rd session of the Standing Committee of Copyright and Related Rights.

Before the WIPO intersessionals held on March 23 and 24 at Geneva between some member states to discuss the pending issues related to the Treaty for the Visually Impaired, the World Blind Union and the International Publishers Association came out with their comments/versions on the Chair’s text dated December 16, 2011. The Chair's text with comments of Member States is available here. [PDF, 364 Kb]

The World Blind Union document, available here [PDF, 314 Kb], attempts to build consensus in the text based on suggestions given by various Member States to the Chair’s text dated December 16, 2011. The inputs of Member States that would be beneficial to the intended beneficiaries of the Treaty, namely persons with visual impairment, print disabilities, etc. were incorporated into the World Blind Union document while suggestions of Member States that were detrimental to the intended beneficiaries were not added. As can be seen by the WBU document, several changes suggested by many Member States, including the United States, the European Union, the African Group, Pakistan, India, etc were incorporated into the WBU document. As far as possible the WBU document has tried not to add new wording which were not suggested by Member States to the Chair's text. The WBU document is, in my opinion, a genuine attempt at building consensus between Member States on the Treaty for the Visually Impaired.

On the other hand, the document proposed by the International Publishers Association [PDF, 215 Kb] is a different story. Rather than trying and building consensus, the IPA has taken a stand that is so extreme that the only aspect I could find in the entire document was that it was progressive. In the first paragraph of the introduction the IPA finally recognizes that persons with print disabilities must have access to works at the same time as others. Unfortunately it is all downhill from there. Given below are some of the suggested changes of the IPA and my comments on the IPA document from the perspective of its impact on India and other developing countries.

The IPA proposes the deletion of the following paragraph from the Preamble: “Needing to contribute to the implementation of the relevant recommendations of the Development Agenda of the World Intellectual Property Organization,”
From this proposed change, it appears that the IPA is opposed to the Development Agenda of the World Intellectual Property Organization. This change is completely unacceptable and unfortunately the further suggestions of the IPA seemed to reflect the anti-development mentality of the IPA.
The IPA proposes that the exceptions and limitations cover only those works that are release in print format and excludes those works that are “born digital”. This implies that for new books which are going to be released only in digital formats, there should be no exceptions and that the beneficiaries should be able to convert those inaccessible versions into accessible versions. This is also unacceptable since persons with print disabilities must have equal access to all books and not only printed books.
The IPA proposes that only those organizations that have the “primary” objective of assisting persons with print disabilities by providing them with services relating to education, training, adaptive reading, or information access needs shall be entitled to convert or distribute accessible format copies. This would mean those educational institutions and other organizations that make material accessible but not on a primary basis will be excluded. This is totally counterproductive if persons with disabilities are to have really equal access to reading material.
The IPA proposes that authorized entities must maintain compliance policies and procedures regarding access and IT security that follow internationally recognized standards. It records appropriate usage information and provides this to rights holders in a transparent and timely manner.
The compliance with this provision will prove extremely expensive and cumbersome for organizations, particularly those organizations in developing countries who are cash strapped. Moreover, it is unclear what these internationally recognized standards are. This addition is also unacceptable.
The IPA proposes that only organizations that actually create an accessible format copy can export that copy to organizations in other countries. This would mean that every organization that exports books would have to re-create the accessible format copy thereby leading to tremendous replication of effort and wastage of precious resources. This is extremely counterproductive.
The IPA proposes to add the following sentence to the text: Member States may choose other means for increasing the availability of accessible format copies, provided these means afford Beneficiaries with equally effective access to Works.
By adding this one sentence the Treaty, which is intended to create minimum exceptions in each Member State, permits countries to move away from the E&L regime into a licensing regime. The benefits of the whole treaty could be negated with this one sentence.

Apart from these changes mentioned above, there are several other changes proposed by the IPA which are completely against the spirit of the Treaty. It is sad to note that instead of trying to reach a consensus the IPA has proposed some preposterous changes and negative changes to the text. But given the stand that they have taken in this document, possibly as a last ditch attempt to thwart the growing momentum for the Treaty, it is likely that the IPA’s disguise as a sheep has been blown away to reveal the wolf.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/analysis-of-comments

March 2017 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2017-05-20T12:47:11Z

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

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
CIS submitted comments on the draft Rights of Persons with Disabilities Rules for the consideration of the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Government of India. Anubha Sinha in a blog post has identified the various kinds of IP in an app and explained the protections available under Indian IPR law. CIS-A2K is conducting a Wiki internship project for students of New Law College, Pune under the guidance of Prof.Dr.Mukund Sarda, Dean and Principal of New Law College. In an Op-ed published in the Hindu, Sunil Abraham has stated that though biometrics may be appropriate for targeted surveillance by the state, it is wholly inappropriate for everyday transactions between state and law abiding citizens. CIS has published a survey that draws upon a range of literature including news articles, academic articles, and presentations and seeks to disaggregate the potential benefits and harms of big data, organising them into several broad categories that reflect the existing scholarly literature. CIS submitted comments on the Information Technology (Security of Prepaid Payment Instruments) Rules, 2017. The comments were in response to the Information Technology (Security of Prepaid Payment Instruments) Rules 2017. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued a consultation paper which called for developing a framework for security of digital wallets operating in the country. Ritam Sengupta, Dr. Richard Heeks, Sumandro Chattapadhyay, and Dr. Christopher Foster have co-authored a paper that presents exploratory research into “data-intensive development” that seeks to inductively identify issues and conceptual frameworks of relevance to big data in developing countries.

CIS in the news:

The 12-digit conundrum (Richa Mishra; Hindu Businessline; March 13, 2017)
EVMs: How transparent is the Indian election process? (Smriti Sharma Vasudeva; The Statesman; March 14, 2017).
Nasscom chief saying full data protection isn’t possible should wake us from our digital slumber (First Post; March 16, 2017).
Privacy concerns multiply for Aadhaar, India’s national biometric identity registry (One World Identity; March 17, 2017).
No ID, no benefits: thousands could lose lifeline under India’s biometric scheme (Guardian; March 21, 2017).
Why We Should All Worry About The Mandatory Imposition Of Aadhaar (Rimin Dutt and Ivan Mehta; Huffington Post; March 24, 2017).
India’s biometric ID scans make sci-fi a reality (Amy Kazmin; Financial Times; March 27, 2017).
क्‍या आधार पर जल्दबाज़ी में है सरकार? (NDTV; March 27, 2017).
Get an Aadhaar card if you don't have one (Priya Nair and Sanjay Kumar Singh; Business Standard; March 27, 2017).
The Aadhaar of all things (Shriya Mohan; Hindu Businessline; March 31, 2017).

CIS members wrote the following articles

Digital native: Lie Me a River (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; March 19, 2017).
It’s the technology, stupid (Sunil Abraham; Hindu Businessline; March 31, 2017).
How Aadhaar compromises privacy? And how to fix it? (Sunil Abraham; Hindu; March 31, 2017).

-------------------------------------
Accessibility & Inclusion
-------------------------------------
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 Rights of Persons with Disabilities Rules (Nirmita Narasimhan; March 29, 2017).

-----------------------------------

Access to Knowledge
-----------------------------------
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.

►Pervasive Technologies

Blog Entry

Intellectual Property Rights and Mobile Apps (Anubha Sinha; March 6, 2017).

►Wikipedia

Blog Entries

"Marathi Bhasha Gaurav Din" celebrations in Maharashtra (Manasa Rao; March 7, 2017).
Women’s History Month: Sambad collaborates with Odia Wikipedia for a Two Day Edit-a-thon (Sailesh Patnaik; March 16, 2017).
Wikisource:Internship Project at New Law College, Pune (Subodh Kulkarni; March 28, 2017).

Events Organized

Women's Day Edit-a-thon (Co-organized by Sterlite Tech Foundation, Jnana Prabhodhini, and CIS-A2K; Pune; March 10, 2017). Subodh Kulkarni was one of the trainers.
Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Environment Management (Organized by CSIBER College and CIS-A2K; Kolhapur; March 30, 2017). Subodh Kulkarni was a trainer.

►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.

Participation in Events

National Consultation on OER for Higher Education (Organized by Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia; New Delhi; March 3, 2017). Anubha Sinha attended the event.
Open Development Book - Authors' Workshop (Organized by International Development Research Centre and Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching; University of Cape Town, South Africa; March 11 - 12, 2017). The workshop gathered the contributers to an upcoming book by IDRC on open development. Elonnai Hickok, Gus Hosein from Privacy International and Sumandro Chattapadhyay are writing a chapter for this book.
Indo - French Perspectives on Digital Studies (Organized by Digital Studies Group; Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; March 15, 2017). Anubha Sinha was a speaker.

Blog Entries

-----------------------------------

Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

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.

►Privacy

Submission

Comments on Information Technology (Security of Prepaid Payment Instruments) Rules, 2017 (Udbhav Tiwari, Pranesh Prakash, Abhay Rana, Amber Sinha and Sunil Abraham; March 23, 2017).

Participation in Events

WISER Lecture : Sumandro Chattapadhyay on Deregulation by Code (Organized by the University of the Witwatersrand; Johannesburg; March 8, 2017). Sumandro Chattapadhyay gave a talk.
Conference on Safety Against Online Child Sexual Abuse (Organized by CID, Telangana and the Department for Women Development and Child Welfare, Telangana; March 16 - 17, 2017). Japreet Grewal was a speaker.
State of Digital Rights in India (Organized by Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University, Delhi and the Internet Freedom Foundation, in association with Access Now; India International Centre, New Delhi; March 24, 2017). Japreet Grewal and Sumandro Chattapadhyay took part in panel discussions.
Hangout on Technology and Jobs (Organized by Google; March 24, 2017). Vanya Rakesh was a speaker.

Blog Entry

Analysis of Key Provisions of the Aadhaar Act Regulations (Amber Sinha and edited by Elonnai Hickok; March 31, 2017).

►Cyber Security

Upcoming Event

Digital Forensics and Cyber Investigations (CIS; New Delhi; April 7, 2017). IPS officer Dr. Madan M. Oberoi will give a talk.

►Big Data

Blog Entry

Benefits, Harms, Rights and Regulation: A Survey of Literature on Big Data (Amber Sinha, Vanya Rakesh, Vidushi Marda and Geethanjali Jujjavarapu; edited by Sunil Abraham, Elonnai Hickok and Leilah Elmokadem; March 23, 2017).

Participation in Event

The Fintech Disruption - Innovation, Regulation, and Transformation (Organized by Carnegie India; March 28, 2017). Sumandro Chattapadhyay attended the event.

►Freedom of Expression

Event Organized

Essentials of building internet tools for inclusion (Valencia, Spain; March 6, 2017). A talk jointly proposed by Chinmayi SK and Rohini Lakshané was selected for the Internet Freedom Festival.

Participation in Events

From Virtual to Reliable: Exploring Freedom and Facts in the World of WWW (World Wide Web) (Organized by Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands and Adaan Foundation; March 21, 2017). Saikat Datta and Amber Sinha were panelists.
Internet Freedom Festival 2017 (Organized by IFF; Valencia, Spain; March 6 - 10, 2017). Vidushi Marda participated in the event. Vidushi also attended these sessions: Data Protection Law and its Different Manifestations; Using the Ranking Digital Rights Corporate Accountability Index for Advocacy & Research; The identity we can't change: a new wave of biometric policies around the world and Enabling free speech online by legal defence: the need for skilled lawyers to secure the free flow of information online: Vidushi channeled a discussion about Shreya Singhal v. Union of India as an important case study in understanding how legal defence has been used to secure rights online.

-----------------------------------
Telecom
-----------------------------------
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

Organisational Hurdles in Telecom (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; March 1, 2017 and Organizing India Blogspot; March 2, 2017)

-----------------------------------
Researchers at Work
-----------------------------------
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:

Research Paper

Exploring Big Data for Development: An Electricity Sector Case Study from India (Ritam Sengupta, Dr. Richard Heeks, Sumandro Chattapadhyay, and Dr. Christopher Foster; Global Development Institute, University of Manchester; March 29, 2017).

Blog Entry

Evaluating Safety Buttons on Mobile Devices: Preview (Rohini Lakshané and Chinmayi S.K.; March 27, 2017).

-----------------------------------

About CIS
-----------------------------------
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.

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