Centre for Internet and Society

Indian Copyright Act, 1957 (as amended by the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010)

pranesh — 2011-08-22T13:28:42Z

This is a version of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957, as it would appear if the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010, were adopted in toto. This has been produced to aid commentators, and is not meant to serve any other purpose. Errors may remain in it, despite my best efforts. If you find any, please e-mail . (Version 0.96 / Last updated: Friday, May 28, 2010)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/amended-copyright-act

Indian Copyright Act, 1957 (as amended by Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010)

admin — 2011-08-24T06:58:10Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/amended-copyright-act.html

Draft Report on Open Government Data in India (v2)

pranesh — 2011-08-23T02:47:22Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/publications/ogd-draft-v2

Open Government Data Study: India

pranesh — 2011-08-23T02:43:49Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/publications/open_data_india_final.pdf

Representation by Knowledge Commons

admin — 2008-09-21T14:40:57Z

Representation by Knowledge Commons to the Patent Office.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/publications/software-patents/Representation%20by%20Knowledge%20Commons.pdf

ALF's Position Paper on Draft Patent Manual

admin — 2008-09-21T14:40:56Z

ALF's draft position paper on the draft patent manual.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/publications/software-patents/ALF%20Position%20Paper%20Draft%20Patent%20Manual.pdf

The Online Video Environment in India: A Survey Report

pranesh — 2010-12-21T07:31:30Z

Report on online for the Open Video Alliance, Centre for Internet and Society, and iCommons by Siddharth Chadha, Ben Moskowitz and Pranesh Prakash.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/publications/content-access/online-video-india-survey-v1

Open Government Data in India (v2)

pranesh — 2012-12-14T10:25:25Z

The first draft of the second version of the Open Government Data Report is now online. Nisha Thompson worked on updating the first version of the report. This updated version of the report on open government data in India includes additional case studies as well as a potential policy (National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy) that would create a central government data portal. The report was distributed for peer review and public feedback.

There are additional government case studies regarding e-governance and how they are changing the way data is collected and distributed. The report also looks at the issues around open data at the city and panchayat level and profiles new projects that are working to fill that void. It also includes a deeper account account of the global perspective on open government data and how India's experience with open data will be different from what the west is doing. Please do let us know what you think are deficiencies in the report, corrections that should be made, or even just general comments. Drop in a word even if you just find it useful. Please do write in to pranesh[at]cis-india.org by Friday, September 2, 2011. Download the [draft report].

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/ogd-draft-v2-call-for-comments

Framing an Alternative Approach to the Jan Lokpal

pranesh — 2011-10-11T11:42:00Z

The National Campaign for Peoples' Right to Information (NCPRI) and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) are organizing a public talk on "Framing an Alternative Approach to the Jan Lokpal" on Friday, August 5, 2011 at CIS, Bangalore. Shankar Singh, Nikhil Dey and Aruna Roy of MKSS and NCPRI will be speaking.

The drafts of both the Lokpal as well as the Jan Lokpal bill have been criticised extensively on multiple grounds, including that of lack of accountability and concentration of power in a singular body. This public talk seeks to provide a framework for an alternative conception of the Jan Lokpal that takes a multi-pronged approach to tackling corruption by moving towards concurrent anti-corruption and grievance redress measures.

Speakers

Shankar Singh, Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) and the National Campaign for Peoples' Right to Information (NCPRI)

Date and Time

Friday, August 5, 2011
18:00-19:30

Venue

Centre for Internet and Society
(next to Domlur Club and close to TERI)
194, 2-C Cross,
Domlur Stage II,
Bangalore

Map: http://goo.gl/2UV5J

Background Reading

Nikhil Dey & Ruchi Gupta, Putting the "Jan" in Lokpal Bill
Aruna Roy & Nikhil Dey, Make Sure the Cure Isn't Worse than the Disease
Aruna Roy & Rakshita Swamy, Lokpal Must Lead by Example
NCPRI, Draft Concept Notes from Public Consultations on Collective and Concurrent Lokpal Anti-Corruption and Grievance Redress Measures
NCPRI, Background Documents on Jan Lok Pal Bill

== Contact ==
For more information, please contact:
Rakshita Swamy <rakshitaswamy at gmail dot com>, or
Pranesh Prakash <pranesh at cis-india dot org>

VIDEO

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/alternative-jan-lokpal

Opening Government: A Guide to Best Practice in Transparency, Accountability and Civic Engagement across the Public Sector

pranesh — 2012-12-14T10:26:42Z

The Transparency & Accountability Initiative has published a book called “Opening Government: A Guide to Best Practice in Transparency, Accountability and Civic Engagement across the Public Sector”. We at the Centre for Internet & Society contributed the section on Open Government Data.

Cross-posted from the Transparency & Accountability Initiative blog.

Download the full report (PDF, 440 Kb)

Open Government Partnership

In January 2011, a small group of government and civil society leaders from around the world gathered in Washington, DC to brainstorm on how to build upon growing global momentum around transparency, accountability and civic participation in governance. The result was the creation of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a new multi-stakeholder coalition of governments, civil society and private sector actors working to advance open government around the world — with the goals of increasing public sector responsiveness to citizens, countering corruption, promoting economic efficiencies, harnessing innovation, and improving the delivery of services.

In September 2011, these founding OGP governments will gather in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly to embrace a set of high-level open government principles, announce country-specific commitments for putting these principles into practice and invite civil society to assess their performance going forward. Also in September, a diverse coalition of governments will stand up and announce their intention to join a six-month process culminating in the announcement of their own OGP commitments and signing of the declaration of principles in January 2012.

'Opening Government' report

To help inform governments, civil society and the private sector in developing their OGP commitments, the Transparency and Accountability Initiative (T/A Initiative) reached out to leading experts across a wide range of open government fields to gather their input on current best practice and the practical steps that OGP participants and other governments can take to achieve it.

The result is the first document of its kind to compile the state of the art in transparency, accountability and citizen participation across 15 areas of governance, ranging from broad categories such as access to information, service delivery and budgeting to more specific sectors such as forestry, procurement and climate finance.

Each expert’s contribution is organized according to three tiers of potential commitments around open government for any given sector — minimal steps for countries starting from a relatively low baseline, more substantial steps for countries that have already made moderate progress, and most ambitious steps for countries that are advanced performers on open government.

Chapters and Contributing Authors

Aid – Publish What You Fund
Asset disclosure - Global Integrity
Budgets – The International Budget Project
Campaign finance – Transparency International - USA
Climate finance – World Resources Institute
Fisheries – TransparentSea
Financial sector reform Global Financial Integrity
Forestry – Global Witness
Electricity – Electricity Governance Initiative
Environment – The Access Initiative
Extractive industries – The Revenue Watch Institute
Open government data – The Centre for Internet and Society - India
Procurement – Transparency International-USA
Right to information – Access Info and the Center for Law and Democracy
Service delivery – Twaweza

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/opening-government-best-practice-guide

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

pranesh — 2012-06-01T15:01:08Z

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

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

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

Intermediary Liability

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comments on the draft National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy

pranesh — 2011-08-24T06:32:55Z

A draft of the 'National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy', which some hope will be the open data policy of India, was made available for public comments in early May. This is what the Centre for Internet and Society submitted.

These are the comments that we at the Centre for Internet and Society submitted to the National Spatial Data Infrastructure on the draft National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy.

Comments on the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy by the Centre for Internet and Society

We would like to begin by noting our appreciation for the forward-thinking nature of the government that is displayed by its pursuit of a policy on sharing of governmental data and enabling its use by citizens. We believe such a policy is a necessity in all administratively and technologically mature democracies. In particular, we applaud the efforts to make this applicable through a negative list of data that shall not be shared rather than a positive list of data that shall be shared, hence making sharing the default position. However, we believe that there are many ways in which this policy can be made even better than it already is.

1. Name

We believe that nomenclature of the policy must accurately reflect both the content of the policy as well as prevailing usage of terms. Given that 'accessibility' is generally used to mean accessibility for persons with disabilities, it is advisable to change the name of the policy.

Recommendation:

A. We would recommend calling this the "National Open Data Policy" to reflect the nomenclature already established for similar policies in other nations like the UK. In the alternative, it could be called a "National Public Sector Information Reuse Policy". If neither of those are acceptable, then it could be re-titled the "National Data Sharing and Access Policy".

2. Scope and Enforceability

It is unclear from the policy what all departments it covers, and whether it is enforceable.

Recommendation:

A. This policy should cover the same scope as the Right to Information (RTI) Act: all 'public authorities' as defined under the RTI Act should be covered by this policy.

B. Its enforceability should be made clear by including provisions on consequences of non-compliance.

3. Categorization

The rationale for the three-fold categorization is unclear. In particular, it is unclear why the category of 'registered access' exists, and on what basis the categorization into 'open access' and 'registered access' is to be done. If the purpose of registration is to track usage, there are many better ways of doing so without requiring registration.

Recommendation:

A. Having three categories of:

Open data
Partially restricted data
Restricted data

B. Data that is classified as non-shareable (as per a reading of s.8 and s.9 of RTI Act as informed by the decisions of the Central Information Commission) should be classified as ‘restricted’.

C. The rationale for classifying data as 'open' or 'partially restricted' should be how the data collection body is funded. If it depends primarily on public funds, then the data it outputs should necessarily be made fully open. If it is funded primarily through private fees, then the data may be classified as 'partially restricted'. 'Partially restricted' data may be restricted for non-commercial usage, with registration and/or a licence being required for commercial usage.

4. Licence

No licence has been prescribed in the policy for the data. Despite India not allowing for database rights, it still allows for copyright over original literary works, which includes original databases. All governmental works are copyrighted by default in India, just as they are in the UK. To ensure that this policy goes beyond merely providing access to data to ensure that people are able to use that data, it must provide for a conducive copyright licence.

Recommendation:

A. The licence that has been created by the UK government (another country in which all governmental works are copyrighted by default) may be referred to: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/

B. However, the UK needed to draft its own licence because the concept of database rights are recognized in the EU, which is not an issue here in India. Thus, it would be preferable to use the Open Data Commons - Attribution licence:

http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/by/

The UK licence is compatible with both the above-mentioned licence as well as with the Creative Commons - Attribution licence, and includes many aspects that are common with Indian law, e.g., bits on usage of governmental emblems, etc.

5. Integrity of the data

Currently, there is no way of ensuring that the data that is put out by the data provider is indeed the data that has been downloaded by a citizen.

Recommendation:

It is imperative to require data providers to provide integrity checks (via an MD5 hash of the data files, for instance) to ensure that technological corruption of the data can be detected.

6. Authenticity of the data

Currently, there is no way of ensuring that the data that is put out by the data provider indeed comes from the data provider.

Recommendation:

It is preferable to require data providers to authenticate the data by using a digital signature.

7. Archival and versioning

The policy is silent on how long data must be made available.

Recommendation:

There must be a system of archival that is prescribed to enable citizens to access older data. Further, a versioning and nomenclature system is required alongside the metadata to ensure that citizens know the period that the data pertains to, and have access to the latest data by default.

8. Open standards

While the document does mention standards-compliance, it is preferable to require open standards to the greatest extent possible, and require that the data that is put out be compliant with the Interoperability Framework for e-Governance (IFEG) that the government is currently in the process of drafting and finalizing.

Recommendation:

A. The policy should reference the National Open Standards Policy that was finalised by the Department of Information Technology in November 2010, as well as to the IFEG.

B. The data should be made available, insofar as possible, in structured documents with semantic markup, which allows for intelligent querying of the content of the document itself. Before settling upon a usage-specific semantic markup schema, well-established XML schemas should be examined for their suitability and used wherever appropriate. It must be ensured that the metadata are also in a standardized and documented format.

9. Citizen interaction

One of the most notable failings of other governments' data stores has been the fact that they don't have adequate interaction with the citizen projects that emerge from that data. For instance, it is sometimes seen that citizens may point out flaws in the data put out by the government. At other times, citizens may create very useful and interesting projects on the basis of the data made public by the government.

Recommendation:

A. The government's primary datastore (data.gov.in) should catalogue such citizen projects, including open and documented APIs that the have been made available for easy access to that data.

B. Additionally the primary datastore should act as a conduit for citizen's comments and corrections to the data provider. Data providers should be required to take efforts to keep the data up-to-date.

C. Multiple forms of access should preferably be provided to data, to allow non-technical users interactive use of the data through the Web.

10. Principles, including 'Protection of Intellectual Property'

It is unclear why ‘protection of intellectual property’ is one of the guiding principles of this policy. Only those ideals which are promoted by this policy should be designated as ‘principles’. This policy, insofar as we can see, has no relation whatsoever with protection of intellectual property. The government is not seeking to enforce copyright over the data through this policy. Indeed, it is seeking to encourage the use of public data. Indeed, the RTI Act makes it clear in s.9 that government copyright shall not act as a barrier to access to information.

Given that, it makes no sense to include ‘protection of intellectual property’ amongst the principles guiding this policy. Further, there are some other principles that may be removed without affecting the purpose or aim of this document: ‘legal conformity’ (this is a given since a policy wouldn’t wish to violate laws); ‘formal responsibility’ (‘accountability’ encapsulates this); ‘professionalism’ (‘accountability’ encapsulates this); ‘security’ (this policy isn’t about promoting security, though it needs to take into account security concerns).

Recommendation:

A. Remove ‘protection of intellectual property’, ‘legal conformity’, ‘formal responsibility’, ‘professionalism’, and ‘security’ from the list of principles in para 1.2.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/draft-ndsap-comments

Killing the Internet Softly with Its Rules

pranesh — 2011-08-20T12:51:42Z

While regulation of the Internet is a necessity, the Department of IT, through recent Rules under the IT Act, is guilty of over-regulation. This over-regulation is not only a bad idea, but is unconstitutional, and gravely endangers freedom of speech and privacy online.

A slightly modified version of this blog entry was published as an op-ed in the Indian Express on May 9, 2011.

Over-regulation of the Internet

Regulation of the Internet, as with regulation of any medium of speech and commerce, is a balancing act. Too little regulation and you ensure that criminal activities are carried on with impunity; too much regulation and you curb the utility of the medium. This is especially so with the Internet, as it has managed to be the impressively vibrant space it is due to a careful choice in most countries of eschewing over-regulation. India, however, seems to be taking a different turn with a three sets of new rules under the Information Technology Act.

These rules deal with the liability of intermediaries (i.e., a large, inclusive, group of entities and individuals, that transmit and allow access to third-party content), the safeguards that cybercafes need to follow if they are not to be held liable for their users' activities, and the practices that intermediaries need to follow to ensure security and privacy of customer data.

Effect of not following the rules

By not observing any of the provisions of these Rules, the intermediary opens itself up for liability for actions of its users. Thus, if a third-party defames someone, then the intermediary can be held liable if he/she/it does not follow the stringent requirements of the Rules.

The problem, however is that, many of the provisions of the Rules have no rational nexus with the due diligence to be observed by the intermediary to absolve itself from liability.

What does the Act require?

Section 79 of the IT Act states that intermediaries are generally not liable for third party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted. It qualifies that by stating that they are not liable if they follow certain precautions (basically, to show that they are real intermediaries). They observe 'due diligence' and don't exercise an editorial role; they don't help or induce commission of the unlawful act; and upon receiving 'actual knowledge', or on being duly notified by the appropriate authority, the intermediary takes steps towards some kind of action.

So, rules were needed to clarify what 'due diligence' involves (i.e., to state that no active monitoring is required of ISPs), what 'actual knowledge' means, and to clarify what happens in happens in case of conflicts between this provision and other parts of IT Act and other Acts.

Impact on freedom of speech and privacy

However, that is not what the rules do. The rules instead propose standard terms of service to be notified by all intermediaries. This means everyone from Airtel to Hotmail to Facebook to Rediff Blogs to Youtube to organizations and people that allow others to post comments on their website. What kinds of terms of service? It will require intermediaries to bar users from engaging in speech that is disparaging', It doesn't cover only intermediaries that are public-facing. So this means that your forwarding a joke via e-mail, which "belongs to another person and to which the user does not have any right" will be deemed to be in violation of the new rules. While gambling (such as betting on horses) isn’t banned in India and casino gambling is legal in Goa, for example, under these Rules, all speech ‘promoting gambling’ is prohibited.

The rules are very onerous on intermediaries, since they require them to act within 36 hours to disable access to any information that they receive a complaint about. Any 'affected person' can complain. Intermediaries will now play the role that judges have traditionally played. Any affected person can bring forth a complaint about issues as diverse as defamation, blasphemy, trademark infringement, threatening of integrity of India, 'disparaging speech', or the blanket 'in violation of any law'. It is not made mandatory to give the actual violator an opportunity to be heard, thus violating the cardinal principle of natural justice of 'hearing the other party' before denying them a fundamental right. Many parts of the Internet are in fact public spaces and constitute an online public sphere. A law requiring private parties to curb speech in such a public sphere is unconstitutional insofar as it doesn't fall within Art.19(2) of the Constitution.

Since intermediaries would lose protection from the law if they don't take down content, they have no incentives to uphold freedom of speech of their users. They instead have been provided incentives to take down all content about which they receive complaints without bothering to apply their minds and coming to an actual conclusion that the content violates the rules.

Cybercafe rules

The cybercafe rules require all cybercafe customers be identified with supporting documents, their photographs taken, all their website visit history logged, and these logs maintained for a year. Compare this to the usage of public pay-phones. Anyone can use a pay-phone without their details being logged. Indeed, such logging allows for cybercafe owners to blackmail their users if they find some embarrassing websites in the history logs—which could be anything from medical diseases to sexual orientation to the fact that you're a whistleblower.

The cybercafe rules also require that all of them install "commercially available safety or filtering software" to prevent access to pornography. In two cases along these lines in the Madras High Court (Karthikeyan R. v. Union of India) and the Bombay High Court (Janhit Manch v. Union of India), the High Courts refused to direct the government to take proactive steps to curb access to Internet pornography stating that such matters require case-by-case analysis to be constitutionally valid under Art.19(1)(a) [Right to freedom of speech and expression].

Such software tends to be very ineffective—non-pornographic websites also get wrongly filtered, and not all pornographic websites get filtered—and the High Courts were right in being wary of any blanket ban. They preferred for individual cases to be registered. If the worry is that our children are getting corrupted, it is up to parents to provide supervision, and not for the government to insist that software do the parenting instead.

Given that all of these were pointed out by both civil society organizations, news media, and industry bodies, when the draft rules were released, it smacks of governmental high-handedness that almost none of the changes suggested by the public have been incorporated in the final rules.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/killing-the-internet-oped

Open Government Data Study

pranesh — 2015-09-03T08:08:22Z

CIS produced a report on the state of open government data in India, looking at policy, infrastructure, and particular case studies, as well as emerging concerns, future strategies and recommendations. The report is authored by Glover Wright, Pranesh Prakash, Sunil Abraham, and Nishant Shah. We are grateful to the Transparency and Accountability Initiative for providing generous funding for this report.

Cross-posted from the Transparency and Accountability Initiative website.

Open Government Data Study: India

India provides one of the most fascinating examples of the use of open government data in a developing country context. It has one of the best right to information laws in the world and the government’s approach to open data builds on this legacy of making open data relevant to Indian citizens. An estimated 456 million Indians live on less than $1.25 a day and a key issue for India, and other developing countries, is how open data can be accessible to them.

This paper reviews the progress being made towards open government data in India. Using case studies, it examines some of the pressing challenges facing the adoption of OGD in India. These include infrastructural problems, privacy concerns and the power imbalances that improved transparency can unwittingly create. It also examines government attitudes towards open data and related policies and reviews the relationships between open government data, the media and civil society.

The authors argue that the Indian Government’s responsibility should not stop short at just providing information, but also extend to making it available and accessible in a way that facilitates analysis and enhances offline usability – and ultimately makes it accessible to the poorest.

The paper concludes by suggesting technical and policy strategies to develop, promote, implement and maintain a robust open government data policy in India.

Download the report [PDF, 1.03 MB]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-government-data-study

Consumers International IP Watchlist 2011 — India Report

pranesh — 2014-05-29T05:52:28Z

Pranesh Prakash prepared the India Report for the Consumers International IP Watchlist 2011. The report was published on the A2K Network website.

The report says:

India's Copyright Act is a relatively balanced instrument that recognises the interests of consumers through its broad private use exception, and by facilitating the compulsory licensing of works that would otherwise be unavailable. However, the compulsory licensing provision have not been utilized so far, because of both a lack of knowledge and more importantly because of the stringent conditions attached to them. Currently, the Indian law is also a bit out of sync with general practices as the exceptions and limitations allowed for literary, artistic and musical works are often not available with sound recordings and cinematograph films. There are numerous other such inconsistencies.

While India has not acceded to the WIPO [23] Copyright Treaty or the WIPO Performers and Phonograms Treaty, yet a set of amendments have been proposed which would bring the Indian law in compliance with both the WCT and the WPPT. These amendments would expose India's consumers to the same problems experienced in other jurisdictions which have prohibited the use of circumvention devices to gain access to legally-acquired copyright material. These amendments also propose a substantial increase in the copyright term for photographs (from 50 years to life plus 60 years), and a conditional increase of ten years for cinematograph films to 70 years if a special agreement is entered into by the producer with the director. It is true that copyright infringement, particularly in the form of physical media, is widespread in India. However this must be taken in the context that India, although fast-growing, remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Although India's knowledge and cultural productivity over the centuries and to the present day has been rich and prodigious, its citizens are economically disadvantaged as consumers of that same knowledge and culture. Indeed, most students, even in the so-called elite institutions, need to employ photocopying and other such means to be able to afford the requisite study materials. Physically challenged persons have no option but to disobey the law that does not grant them equal access to copyrighted works.

Legitimate operating systems (with the notable exception of most free and open source OSes) add a very high overhead to the purchase of cheap computers, thus driving users to pirated software. Thus, these phenomena need to be addressed not at the level of enforcement, but at the level of supply of affordable works in a suitable format.

Over the last year, the Standing Committee tasked with review of the Copyright Amendment Bill has held hearings and presented its findings and recommendations to the HRD Ministry. However, not a single consumer rights organization was called by the Standing Committee, and no civil society engagement was sought except for the issue of access for persons with disabilities. This was despite a number of civil society organizations sending in written submissions to the Standing Committee. The government is going to re-table the Bill in this session of Parliament (February-April).

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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ip-watch-list-2011