From soenke.zehle at web.de Tue Dec 2 19:22:42 2003 From: soenke.zehle at web.de (Soenke Zehle) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2003 14:52:42 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] Junk farming Message-ID: <002d01c3b8db$901b9060$fe78a8c0@szbqkbao9nnomh> One of the many links between traditional knowledge, biotech and the 'info' society - the deskilling of farmers and the transfer of 'knowledge' that use to be held in common to 'intelligent' commodities protected by IPR, sz [via GM WATCH] Junk farming - how putting the 'intelligence' in the GM seed makes farming stupid, serving the interests of no one but the big corporations http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=2234 Weeding out the skilled farmer By Jim Scharplaz Prairie Writers Circle (Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2003 -- CropChoice guest commentary) -- Last summer, a field by my house was planted to soybeans. Walking past early in the growing season, I noticed that the field was completely free of weeds. The plant population had been reduced to the simplest possible -- only soybeans grew there. These were genetically modified to resist the well-known herbicide with which the field had been treated. The herbicide had killed all other plants. Genetically modified plants and modern herbicides are among many new technologies for farming. Some people are concerned about these technologies ' effects on human health. Others worry about the environment. I am concerned that the main purpose of these technologies is the complete industrialization of agriculture. This does not bode well for farmers or the rest of us. Historically, growing soybeans, especially controlling weeds in soybeans, has been very difficult. The family that grew the soybeans by my house are wonderful farmers. They have been growing crops there for more than 50 years. Their experience, study and inherited ability make them better able than anyone else to farm that field. Before genetically engineered soybeans, a field this weed-free would take all their skill, plus quite a bit of hand labor. But much new technology "simplifies" farming, as the herbicide and genetically modified soybeans simplified the field next door. The knowledge required to grow the best particular plants in particular places, the valuable craft required to be a good farmer, is being lost. And the farmer is increasingly dependent on an industrial food system controlled by a very few, very large corporations. A study by University of Missouri rural sociologists found that four companies own 60 percent of U.S. terminals for grain exports. Since then, agribusiness giant ADM acquired Farmland Industries' grain division, and Cenex/Harvest States joined with Cargill. The researchers report that four companies slaughter 81 percent of our beef. The top five food retailers' share of the U.S. market grew from 24 percent in 1997 to 42 percent in 2000. The agricultural corporations co-opt the land-grant university research system so that tax dollars support research that ultimately will enhance their profits. Their legion of lawyers overwhelms the Justice Department's antitrust division, and their lobbyists essentially write the increasingly complex farm bills. These companies spent $119 million lobbying in 1998, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. This dwarfs the $6.8 million spent by environmental groups and even the $49 million spent by military contractors that year. Individuals change jobs back and forth between corporate agribusiness and the Agriculture Department until the two are indistinguishable. Increasing industrialization is generally assumed to go with improvements in the standard of living. But big companies mean big mistakes. Recent events show that the people who run our largest corporations are far from perfect, and some are willing to commit crimes to cover their misdeeds, both accidental and deliberate. These things have affected nearly all of us to some extent. Many folks have lost investment capital or seen their retirement funds evaporate. As bad as these losses have been, for an agriculture increasingly controlled by fewer decision-makers, mistakes could cause far greater problems. It's not that farmers don't make mistakes. The difference is one of magnitude. One farmer's mistake has no measurable effect on our food supply. The mistake of one huge corporation could create catastrophe. Diversity in agriculture is our best guarantee of food security. Farmers are the foundation of civilization. They are as essential to its stability as they were when agriculture began 10,000 years ago. New agricultural technologies must be judged: Is their purpose the industrialization and homogenization of farming, or the benefit of humanity? Jim Scharplaz raises cattle in Ottawa County , Kan , and is on the board of the Kansas Rural Center . He is a member of the Prairie Writers Circle at the Land Institute, Salina , Kan. From jeebesh at sarai.net Wed Dec 3 22:06:05 2003 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 22:06:05 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] A Robin Hood approach to plant biotechnology Message-ID: <200312032206.05101.jeebesh@sarai.net> A Robin Hood approach to plant biotechnology Royal Society B.A.A.S Magazine http://www.biology.leeds.ac.uk/psp/publications/biotech/biotech3.htm AT A GLANCE: * New plant biotechnologies have the potential to increase food production to meet future needs * At present the technology is dominated by agribusiness-it must be given a poverty focus. * Publicly funded research is required that will transform important crops for use by developing countries. * New technology should require no extra knowledge or resources by the grower to implement it in a developing country. * Before Implementation, an holistic approach to the problem must be taken. * Intellectual property protection can secure funds for further research but developing countries can be awarded royalty-free licenses. * Where they have no financial interest in a crop, companies should be persuaded to donate the technology from related plants. ------------------------------------------------------- From soenke.zehle at web.de Wed Dec 3 19:06:43 2003 From: soenke.zehle at web.de (Soenke Zehle) Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 14:36:43 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] FWD: CAMBIA Pushes for Open Source BioTech Message-ID: <00a301c3b9a2$7dc02210$fe78a8c0@szbqkbao9nnomh> [via BIO-IPR] ________________________________________________________ TITLE: Push to free up biotech tools for all AUTHOR: Anna Salleh PUBLICATION: ABC Science Online DATE: 1 December 2003 SOURCE: Australian Broadcasting Corporation URL: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s999733.htm ________________________________________________________ ABC Science Online | 1 December 2003 PUSH TO FREE UP BIOTECH TOOLS FOR ALL Anna Salleh Scientists anywhere in the world, including developing nations, should have free access to the scientific tools of modern biology and genetics, says an Australian geneticist. Dr Richard Jefferson, founder of the non-profit organisation CAMBIA based in Canberra, is urging the global biotechnology community to support a new program to promote this "open access". The new program is called Biological Innovation for Open Society (BIOS) and Jefferson will announce it at the World Economic Forum to be held in Davos, Switzerland next January. Jefferson said the tools of innovation were being withheld from the public and from innovators themselves, stifling competition, fair play and creativity. "For example, access to the fundamental tool used to transfer a gene into a plant, Agrobacterium transformation, is controlled by a handful of large companies," he said. Jefferson called for a "democratisation of innovation" based on "open source genetics". Central to this concept was a distinction between the tools of innovation and the products of innovation. Tools of genetics and modern biology should be made freely available just as computer programming tools were shared in the open source software movement, he said. "CAMBIA is developing an alternative technology that's equally as effective [as the Agrobacterium transformation] but will be made available to anyone who wants it." Another technology, developed by colleague Dr Andrzej Kilianm, called DarT, was a powerful gene mapping technology already being made available under the open access regime, said Jefferson. "The open source revolution in information technology has proven itself rock solid as one of the greatest innovations in the history of creativity. If you decentralise the group of tool creators and make sure people are bound to a public good ethos, it works and makes money for people," he said. "With Linux and all the open source innovations, you're not seeing the death of Microsoft, you're seeing Microsoft work harder to be a better company so that it can stay afloat." The scientific tools under BIOS would be licensed under a similar agreement as the general public licence of the Linux computing community, Jefferson said. "That licence will say you will agree to share improvements in the core technology. You can make your own applications as proprietary as you want; you can patent your invention. But the tools to do that must be a public good." He said the current domination of biotechnology innovation by "large monolithic corporations with high capital" was not serving the public at large, including developing nations, and had led to a "legitimate unease by the public about biotech". "I don't think that multinationals are necessarily evil, but I do think they have to be complemented by alternative technologies," he said. "Biotechnology, the way it is right now, is needed in the developing world like a screen door on a submarine," said Jefferson. "What it really needs is what good science can do in biology, in biotechnology. And that means a different agenda and a different group of innovators. "We'd like to use the tools of modern genetics, some of which will be molecular markers, some of which might be transgenic, to improve the spectrum of what we can offer as a tool." He added such tools could also help us understand and improve agricultural management systems such as organic approaches. An example of this would be the development of new "bioindicator" plant varieties that would tell farmers about their soil nitrogen levels. But most importantly, BIOS would offer a choice to farmers at the local level: "We have a 3D philosophy: democratise, decentralise and diversify," he said. CAMBIA's main funding comes from technology licensing and the Rockefeller Foundation in the U.S. _________________________________________________________ GOING FURTHER (compiled by GRAIN) Speaking of patents on Agrobacterium, the agrochemical giant Bayer has just won a monopoly on the use of A. tumefsciens in developing transgenic plants in Europe: Angela Cullen, "Bayer Gets Exclusive Rights To Plant-Parasite Patent", Dow Jones Newswire, Monheim, 28 November 2003. http://www.e-topics.com/index.asp?layout=topic_story&UserID=20011105033636055798&topic=830&doc_id=d1127018.7jo&date=11%2F28%2F2003&display=Intellectual+Property Bayer CropScience, "Following grant of European patent on Agrobacterium transformation of plants, Bayer CropScience AG and Max Planck Society announce new licensing deal", Bayer press release, Monheim/Munich, 27 November 2003. http://www.press.bayer.com/News/News.nsf/id/1AD9DC6F48E0A659C1256DEB003EBEBF?Open&ccm=010005000&l=EN Rachel Melcer, "Monsanto downplays European patent ruling", St Louis Post-Dispatch, 2 December 2003. http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/Business/AA4CF9D74742705E86256DF1001EB1A0?OpenDocument&Headline=Monsanto+downplays+European+patent+ruling For more information on CAMBIA's "open source genetics" programme: http://www.cambia.org.au/main/opensource.htm From shamnadbasheer at yahoo.co.in Tue Dec 2 20:46:07 2003 From: shamnadbasheer at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Shamnad=20Basheer?=) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2003 15:16:07 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Commons-Law] Re:the great pharma killings.... In-Reply-To: <1070201837.911.27.camel@box> Message-ID: <20031202151607.2705.qmail@web8005.mail.in.yahoo.com> just finished reading this at http://www.newint.org/issue362/keynote.htm -must say the f.. word and a few other profanities did crop up in my mind. shamnad Yahoo! India Mobile: Ringtones, Wallpapers, Picture Messages and more.Download now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20031202/efa5373c/attachment.html From sudhir75 at hotmail.com Sun Dec 7 06:52:56 2003 From: sudhir75 at hotmail.com (sudhir krishnaswamy) Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2003 01:22:56 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] open access source for Law Message-ID: Dear all A contribution to the debate on open access law that was afoot a while earlier on the list. Apart from the access to legal research journals there is the pressing need for open access to basic legal information - cases + statutes. There's an interesting document on the principles of open access to general legal information titled the Montreal Declaration http://www.worldlii.org/worldlii/declaration/ The legal information institute efforts globally are the most remarkable effort at translating this declaration into action. http://www.worldlii.org Sadly we don't have an Indian portal that does the same. Do take a look at the poor efforts of the Government at http://indiancourts.nic.in/welcome.htm and contrast it with the UK's effort or that by the European Union. www.courtservice.gov.uk www.europa.int Best Sudhir _________________________________________________________________ Contact brides & grooms FREE! Only on www.shaadi.com. http://www.shaadi.com/ptnr.php?ptnr=hmltag Register now! From george_rohan at rediffmail.com Sun Dec 7 23:04:17 2003 From: george_rohan at rediffmail.com (rohan george) Date: 7 Dec 2003 17:34:17 -0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: Open Source Access for Basic Legal Materials Message-ID: <20031207173417.14547.qmail@webmail36.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20031207/40c35677/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- I agree that in india, its rather hard to find proper government sponsored sites for legal information. On the other hand, I have to give it to all those individuals out there who actually take the trouble to put up basic legal materials for access to all. I also think that if one knows where to look, one could find a lot of basic legal information in india, except maybe for high court and tribunal decisions. For example, For Bare Acts, you have http://www.mahalibrary.com/ as well as http://www.indialawinfo.com/ Membership for the first is free, though membership for the second is paid. however, the second has enough free resources such as bare acts, sample agreements and notifications to be quite useful. For cases, at least supreme court decisions seeem well covered with http://www.supremecourtonline.com/ This site seems to be run by a publisher in chandigarh. I dont know what they get out of it, but they're still doing it. The major problem however, seems to be more of a matter of a proper search engine with proper cross referencing facilities. Something sadly lacking on most sites, and definitely on the government sites. It is this which makes searching on the paid sites like manupatra, lexisnexis and westlaw so much better. I think its quite possible to make some sort of an omnibus legal portal nowadays. The only problem is getting all the data to "one place", so to speak, on the net, and developing a proper search engine, without which, you're largely gone when searching online. From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Mon Dec 8 13:02:02 2003 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 23:32:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: Open Source Access for Basic Legal Materials In-Reply-To: <20031207173417.14547.qmail@webmail36.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: <20031208073202.12960.qmail@web13604.mail.yahoo.com> Hi Rohan this an an idea that I have at different levels been tryiong to pursue, the thing is that it is nnot really difficult to do something like this, given that all of the data is already available in digital format through SCC onlien, manupatra and Grand Jurix. and as Grand jurix have themselves shownh un Eastern Book v. Navin desai, there is no copyright in the cases themselves, we just need to 'free the data' which is available in properietary databases. We had written out something on this which I am including. of thinking through the idea of making a database available. Lawrence i. Creating A Public Legal Resource Very often the absence of imaginative spaces in a particular discipline emerges in contrast to innovative spaces created in other disciplines. This revelation should however also allow for a creative change within the traditional spaces , transforming the very grounds of its practice. In the realms of software and media, there have been radical challenges made to the idea of centralised production and dissemination of information but these developments have not been adequately emulated within the realm of law. One of the biggest constraints in doing socio legal research in India has been the absence of a tradition of public institutions and the other is that of a collaborative model of research. This lack is felt at two levels: a. The absence of public legal resources. (Even institutions which are supposed to be �public� like high court libraries are in fact accessible only by advocates). It is also common knowledge that the best law libraries in India are owned not by any public institution or educational institution, but by individual practitioners. b. In addition to the absence of public institutions there is a larger conceptual problem of the absence of a tradition of �public research�. Research has traditionally been seen as an activity which is an adjunct to academic work and carried out by individual scholars or academics, rather than as a public activity carried out by a network of researchers, practitioners, scholars and researchers. The institutional and conceptual poverty at the level of legal research is revealed by the striking inability of legal scholarship to adapt to methodological and other innovations that have been taking place in various other disciplines from literature to software. We are particularly motivated for instance by the creative possibilities that a collaborative model like the free software / open source model enables. The Publicness of a Legal Resource The invocation of �public� in India is often fraught with dangers of complexity. There are a number of ways in which we use the term �critical public legal resource� (CPLR) and it is important to map them out. The most critical manner in which we refer to the idea of a public legal resource is in the �publicness� of the space. What drives us towards the idea of a public resource is the belief that institutional spaces do not merely serve in an instrumental manner towards making information available, but provide a space for the coming together of a critical public itself. � We imagine a space where new and old media forms are used to enable people to have access to legal and other information that in the present context is not easily available. These could include practitioners, students, academics, researchers and activists. There are currently very few institutions which can truly be described as being of a public nature which provides facilities such as a world class library, archival database, electronic data etc. One could probably name the Indian law Institute in Delhi and the National Law School in Bangalore as institutions which have the trappings of a public resource. It is also important to note that despite the fact that legal decisions and judgments are public domain information, they are sometimes the most difficult information to access. � While digitalization has made cases and decisions more accessible in terms of cost, they are still not available freely and the government charges for these decisions. Certain private players like Manuptra.com also provide these services to the �public� but at the rate of Rs. 16 per judgment. We believe that if we were to even make all the cases and decisions in India thus far available to the public via the internet, cheap CD�s, various customized electronic databases etc. it would be an unprecedented move and perhaps the best example of �free as in freedom of speech� within the legal domain. It is akin to making available the basic GNU code that Stallman made available to the world. � If public domain information such as cases and decisions are not easy to come by, then more qualitative information in the form of commentaries and journal articles are almost impossible to access. The idea behind building an institutional space which provides an easy access point to the public is then our first motivation for creating a �public legal resource�. Given the paucity of quality legal materials available in India, the first steps towards the creation of a critical legal research community would consist of the creation of the backbone or the raw materials for such a community. This would be through collaboratively creating compilations of cases and other readings materials. The idea is similar to the way in which coders contributed to the Linus Torvalds�s kernel, namely contributions by academics, students and other users from different disciplines. It also links up crucially to the kind of publics that you attempt to create. One example of this is the current copyright database that we are making available for the general public. What we have attempted to do in the current module on copyright for instance is to create reading materials on various introductory topics on copyright. We then invite users who find this database useful to send in interesting cases that they may find which can be updated on the database or any user interested in particular area can take the responsibility of creating a module for that area. The modules can then be updated online and also a new version of the CD brought out every six months so that in three- four years we have a substantial public resource on copyright. The experiment can then be replicated with other areas of law from patents and trademarks to constitutional law, property laws, media laws etc. In addition any person interested in creating a public resource on an area of personal interest may also take the initiative to do so., e.g. a specialized area like law and poetry. We believe that legal scholarship can only be enriched through a strong interdisciplinary approach and towards that end we hope that this public resource will excite academics, practitioners and students form other disciplines such as cultural studies, history, economics etc to participate in the creation of the CPLR � We believe that the creation of a public legal resource also has significant impact in terms of the creation of a legal public itself. If the legal profession as been a highly hierarchical one, it is in no small measure due to the high costs involved in the building of a personal library. One of the entry barriers of the legal profession is the fact that legal information is not easily available thereby perpetrating an almost genetic practice of the law where if you inherit a law library, you also inherit a great legal future. It also links up crucially to the kind of legal public that you want to constitute. We obviously don�t see ourselves in an evangelical �improve the legal profession� manner, we see ourselves interrogating the normative basis that the law assumes for itself through the kind of information we provide. � We also use the phrase �public legal resource� to interrogate the basis of the idea of a what constitutes a public in terms of legal research. Thus far legal research has been confined to legal practitioners, a few social activists who have had no choice but to become quasi lawyers as a result of the demands of the movements that they are a part of. Coming as we do from the belief that law is a socially constituted discourse, we believe that it is imperative in the imagination of a new space for us to widen the ambit of the idea of legal research itself. For us the idea of a public legal resource takes into account the various publics who would be interested in various aspects of law. One of the ways in which we can cater towards a vibrant community around legal issues is by focusing on a strong inter disciplinary approach in the building of the legal resource itself. We believe that the creation of a space that self consciously represents itself as a legal resource center that caters to non legal professionals will assist in the building of a dialogue between legal academics, professionals, students and the non legal community. � If we locate our venture as being one that is inspired by the open source community we also have no hesitation in stating our reservation with the open source model as reflected purely in the context of software. It is the interface of law as code and code as law that has appeal to us. Much as we would like the legal community to experiment with the ideas of collaborative production and distribution, we also feel that a new public would interrogate the practice of the open source community as well, where coders need to reflect critically on their practices within the larger discourse of intellectual property. � The idea of a networked research community attempts to reconfigure modes of the production of knowledge itself, with a recognition that research is dependent not on the efforts of an individual but to a multiplicity of sources. Implicit in this recognition of the mode and manner in which research is carried out, we also believe that research consist of making available the maps and resources that the researcher has relied on to navigate his/ her way through a field. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/ From margaret at eyebeam.org Fri Dec 5 22:06:05 2003 From: margaret at eyebeam.org (Margaret Heinlen) Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 11:36:05 -0500 Subject: [Commons-Law] extended play - Distributed Creativity Message-ID: <1ED41297-2741-11D8-8FE4-000393C95042@eyebeam.org> Hello from Eyebeam - As we are a week away from the final topic of our online forum and we would like to take this opportunity to, one last time, extend our invitation to Sarai.net to be a co-host of Distributed Creativity. I hope some of you have had a moment to visit the forum (http://www.eyebeam.org/distributedcreativity). There's been many interesting conversations with our previous topics and hosts. And, transcripts from our live live panel event featuring Lawrence Lessig speaking about the creative, legal and commercial implications of copyright and copyleft laws will be posted tomorrow. There is so little involved or required from your end - just a few hours (4 hours minimum total over the week) from one or more moderators to check in once a day (which the list admin would probably be doing anyway) to let our system administrator know if there are any problems. I imagine one or more of your group lists would be interested in the "Mod the Market: Innovations in Commerce" topic and in discussions with colleagues and in the U.S., Australia and Europe. We feel strongly about making an effort to reach across physical borders, encourage cross-pollination and exchange. Your range of Sarai list topics are so kindred. Mod the Market intends to discuss issues of free and open software movements, modifying off-the-shelf soft and hardware, tactical and viral media, alternative uses or repurposing of technologies and those who use them, distributed community projects related to these modifications, social and commercial issues dealing with fees, taxes and advertising of web and wireless networks. New York has a huge Indian population, one that is especially active in areas of technology and we hope this brief connection might also foster a longer, broader relationships between people of similar culture, nationality or simply of similar interests. Creative Commons (http://www.creativecommons.org) who also hosted the first week has agreed to host the final week of the forum however, we sincerely hope that you will reconsider and join us in Distributed Creativity. Here's a summary of the way things will work from a system administration point of view that Richard Chung, technical director, and the designer, Vivian Selbo, have worked out: * all partners are mailing lists with a subscriber list; their users post via email (not web) * eyebeam web site is the mail portal for non-partner participants; eyebeam script will copy out emails and send them to the partner mailing list * posts from the eyebeam site will be moderated on the eyebeam end and then selectively sent out to partner site lists. * admin approved posts go through automatically * imported posts from partner lists will have the email address that the post was sent from that will serve as the user name as well Please reply at your earliest convenience and we look forward to the possibility of collaborating with you in the future, hopefully sooner rather than later! Best regards, Margaret Heinlen, margaret at eyebeam.org Beth Rosenberg, beth at eyebeam.org http://www.eyebeam.org http://www.eyebeam.org/distributedcreativity -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 3225 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20031205/e783914d/attachment.bin From george_rohan at rediffmail.com Tue Dec 9 11:10:27 2003 From: george_rohan at rediffmail.com (rohan george) Date: 9 Dec 2003 05:40:27 -0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Developing a Public Legal Space Message-ID: <20031209054027.7060.qmail@webmail26.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20031209/c7fa39a3/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- I'm intrigued by your ideas on public legal spaces, but i have a few questions concerning the practicalities of the matter. Firstly, i know legal journals are usually out of the question to legally make a publicly accesible resource due to the fact that they are protected by their own copyright laws. However, with relation to basic legal materials such as case law and bare acts, Why is it not do-able? Or, if it is, why has it not been done yet? In relation to this, i must ask, 1. Do you know how sites like manupatra obtained their cases, cause I'd really like to know. Did they just hire an army of data entry operators, or is there some other way? Not the later cases, most of which, if you are willing to suffer, are available on Judis, but the earlier ones. 2. Does'nt every bare act ever released get published, even if for a short while, on the relevant departmental homepage? If so, even those should be easy to obtian, and the older major acts, and some of the minor acts as well, are already available in full text format on various private sites online. 3. The SEBI and RBI website, as far as i know, and whenever theyre up, provide access to all major notifications issued by them, so those too should be accesible. The other departments could pose a problem perhaps. My point in asking all these questions is, is it really that hard to get together a legal portal for free and open access to all? And, most importantly, with the type of contact which organisations like Sarai and ALF must be having with programmers and other members of the IT community, it isnt that hard to get together a properly cross-referenced, easily and comprehensively searchable database of at least primary legal materials. If you'll note, that is basically what sites like manupatra ans lexsite provide at 16 per judgement,as you said. Organisations like yours and Sarai's may or may not have financial backing, but you do have access to a pool of skilled labour which is dedicated, or at the very least, interested in a cause. I think if resources are pooled together and efforts coordinated, this would not be such an impossible idea. From george_rohan at rediffmail.com Tue Dec 9 11:09:26 2003 From: george_rohan at rediffmail.com (rohan george) Date: 9 Dec 2003 05:39:26 -0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Developing a Public Legal Space Message-ID: <20031209053926.23777.qmail@webmail25.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20031209/c8bafe20/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- I'm intrigued by your ideas on public legal spaces, but i have a few questions concerning the practicalities of the matter. Firstly, i know legal journals are usually out of the question to legally make a publicly accesible resource due to the fact that they are protected by their own copyright laws. However, with relation to basic legal materials such as case law and bare acts, Why is it not do-able? Or, if it is, why has it not been done yet? In relation to this, i must ask, 1. Do you know how sites like manupatra obtained their cases, cause I'd really like to know. Did they just hire an army of data entry operators, or is there some other way? Not the later cases, most of which, if you are willing to suffer, are available on Judis, but the earlier ones. 2. Does'nt every bare act ever released get published, even if for a short while, on the relevant departmental homepage? If so, even those should be easy to obtian, and the older major acts, and some of the minor acts as well, are already available in full text format on various private sites online. 3. The SEBI and RBI website, as far as i know, and whenever theyre up, provide access to all major notifications issued by them, so those too should be accesible. The other departments could pose a problem perhaps. My point in asking all these questions is, is it really that hard to get together a legal portal for free and open access to all? And, most importantly, with the type of contact which organisations like Sarai and ALF must be having with programmers and other members of the IT community, it isnt that hard to get together a properly cross-referenced, easily and comprehensively searchable database of at least primary legal materials. If you'll note, that is basically what sites like manupatra ans lexsite provide at 16 per judgement,as you said. Organisations like yours and Sarai's may or may not have financial backing, but you do have access to a pool of skilled labour which is dedicated, or at the very least, interested in a cause. I think if resources are pooled together and efforts coordinated, this would not be such an impossible idea. From george_rohan at rediffmail.com Tue Dec 9 11:10:38 2003 From: george_rohan at rediffmail.com (rohan george) Date: 9 Dec 2003 05:40:38 -0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Developing a Public Legal Space Message-ID: <20031209054038.25209.qmail@webmail25.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20031209/89da3d56/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- I'm intrigued by your ideas on public legal spaces, but i have a few questions concerning the practicalities of the matter. Firstly, i know legal journals are usually out of the question to legally make a publicly accesible resource due to the fact that they are protected by their own copyright laws. However, with relation to basic legal materials such as case law and bare acts, Why is it not do-able? Or, if it is, why has it not been done yet? In relation to this, i must ask, 1. Do you know how sites like manupatra obtained their cases, cause I'd really like to know. Did they just hire an army of data entry operators, or is there some other way? Not the later cases, most of which, if you are willing to suffer, are available on Judis, but the earlier ones. 2. Does'nt every bare act ever released get published, even if for a short while, on the relevant departmental homepage? If so, even those should be easy to obtian, and the older major acts, and some of the minor acts as well, are already available in full text format on various private sites online. 3. The SEBI and RBI website, as far as i know, and whenever theyre up, provide access to all major notifications issued by them, so those too should be accesible. The other departments could pose a problem perhaps. My point in asking all these questions is, is it really that hard to get together a legal portal for free and open access to all? And, most importantly, with the type of contact which organisations like Sarai and ALF must be having with programmers and other members of the IT community, it isnt that hard to get together a properly cross-referenced, easily and comprehensively searchable database of at least primary legal materials. If you'll note, that is basically what sites like manupatra ans lexsite provide at 16 per judgement,as you said. Organisations like yours and Sarai's may or may not have financial backing, but you do have access to a pool of skilled labour which is dedicated, or at the very least, interested in a cause. I think if resources are pooled together and efforts coordinated, this would not be such an impossible idea. From george_rohan at rediffmail.com Tue Dec 9 11:11:14 2003 From: george_rohan at rediffmail.com (rohan george) Date: 9 Dec 2003 05:41:14 -0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Developing a Public Legal Space Message-ID: <20031209054114.21025.qmail@mailweb33.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20031209/c7b2d898/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- I'm intrigued by your ideas on public legal spaces, but i have a few questions concerning the practicalities of the matter. Firstly, i know legal journals are usually out of the question to legally make a publicly accesible resource due to the fact that they are protected by their own copyright laws. However, with relation to basic legal materials such as case law and bare acts, Why is it not do-able? Or, if it is, why has it not been done yet? In relation to this, i must ask, 1. Do you know how sites like manupatra obtained their cases, cause I'd really like to know. Did they just hire an army of data entry operators, or is there some other way? Not the later cases, most of which, if you are willing to suffer, are available on Judis, but the earlier ones. 2. Does'nt every bare act ever released get published, even if for a short while, on the relevant departmental homepage? If so, even those should be easy to obtian, and the older major acts, and some of the minor acts as well, are already available in full text format on various private sites online. 3. The SEBI and RBI website, as far as i know, and whenever theyre up, provide access to all major notifications issued by them, so those too should be accesible. The other departments could pose a problem perhaps. My point in asking all these questions is, is it really that hard to get together a legal portal for free and open access to all? And, most importantly, with the type of contact which organisations like Sarai and ALF must be having with programmers and other members of the IT community, it isnt that hard to get together a properly cross-referenced, easily and comprehensively searchable database of at least primary legal materials. If you'll note, that is basically what sites like manupatra ans lexsite provide at 16 per judgement,as you said. Organisations like yours and Sarai's may or may not have financial backing, but you do have access to a pool of skilled labour which is dedicated, or at the very least, interested in a cause. I think if resources are pooled together and efforts coordinated, this would not be such an impossible idea. From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Tue Dec 9 12:05:38 2003 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 22:35:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: Developing a Public Legal Space In-Reply-To: <20031209054114.21025.qmail@mailweb33.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: <20031209063538.45157.qmail@web13608.mail.yahoo.com> Hi Rohan on some of the logistical questions that you have raised, it is eminently doable and I think we have a great chance to really work out a collaboratoive content model to create the database. I would think that there are three distinct tasks which would be requirted, each requiring different skill sets and co ordination. 1. Firstly, there is the question of digital information. Thankfuly, all of this avilablke now, ranging from the very expensive ( SCC Online) to expensive ( manupatra, but with decent value add in terms of search engine etc) an moderately expensive like Grand Jurix. What you would need is a team of people who would copy and paste the texts of the decisions, and upoload the same. 2. More importantly however you need a back end that deisgn the architecture of the site/ CD in terms of the way in which the data is strctured. This could either be flat database, for example arranged chronologically or, but I think that aprt from a falt daatbase, one should also attempt at the same time, specialised databases which are human run on specefic areas: fopr instance while at infdialawinfo, we atemptyes to create public interest litigation databases, media cases databases etc. We could think of a callobaroative model where people with spoecialised areas takle on editrorial content for creating these databases, for example someone could offer to take editorial charge for all cases dealing with slums/ slum dwellers etc. 3. we also need a strong tech backing in terms of having a solid, yet flexible adrchitecture which ensures speedy and accurate searches, as well as enough felixibility to rearrange the database in the future. Grops like Mahiti who are working on content management systems based on FLOSS models like Plone could be of great help here. Even if people are wiling to give their time and energies to this prject, it would stillr equire some amount of infrastructure suppoirt etc in terms of a smal office with people working full time on uploading etc. The more imrpotant issue at the end of the day is how do we sustain the efforts after creating the database. We also need to ensure that we dont replicate efforts, for example, iprlawindia.org which has most of the ip cases available to all etc. Lawrence __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/ From george_rohan at rediffmail.com Wed Dec 10 16:18:00 2003 From: george_rohan at rediffmail.com (rohan george) Date: 10 Dec 2003 10:48:00 -0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free Omnibus Legal Portal Message-ID: <20031210104800.3250.qmail@webmail36.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20031210/7da7ea35/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- So, as I see it, setting up an omnibus legal portal would require the folowing: 1. Copies of SCC Online and/or Jurix, access to manupatra.com and access to broadband internet 24 hrs. This might set one back by at least Rs. (25000+12000+20000+30000)Rs. 1 lakh. Of course, one alternative might be to use the official websites, which might be cheaper, if less dependable. 2. Data Entry Operators, to cut, paste and upload the documents. In addition to this, i think one may need proofreaders to examine the judgements for cases within, and to hyperlink to those judgements referred. It may also be possible, if such a system is established, to come up with a "Shepardise" like system, like the one they have in Lexis Nexis, where the engine shows you all the cases referred to in the case you're looking at, as well as all the cases you have referred to. The same could apply to Acts or Sections referred to. 3. One would require pretty good programmers for creating the search engine for the flat database, with a proper, fully searchable boolean search facility, as well as simple searches. I suppose mahiti may be able to solve that problem. Also required: people who are pretty well versed in certain fields of law to help us create a database according to subject. Goodness knows how many that would be. 4. The question of sustainability, i think, ties in with that of initiative: Is anyone considering this project as a serious embarkment, has anyone begun work on such a project, or is it an in the pipeline issue? I think, if such an initiative can be started and properly executed, then i dont think there would be a problem sustaining it, as it would, if properly executed, be a portal with all the facilities of manupatra without the costs. From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 10 18:14:49 2003 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 04:44:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free Omnibus Legal Portal In-Reply-To: <20031210104800.3250.qmail@webmail36.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: <20031210124449.76299.qmail@web13601.mail.yahoo.com> Hi Rohan I'll try answer the last question first, about who is interested in such a venture. I for one am extremely interested in doing it, and I know that Sunil of Mahiti is also very interested....I think theat we can perhjaps veen start off on a small scale and experiment with the kind of database. I am currentyl working on a database of media cases for the past fifty years arranged according to subject index (censorship, contempt etc etc) and if any one else is interested we can collaboarate on that and begin it as a pilot ptoject to even get interested people roped in... Lawrence __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/ From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Thu Dec 11 07:51:10 2003 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 07:51:10 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free Omnibus Legal Portal In-Reply-To: <20031210104800.3250.qmail@webmail36.rediffmail.com> References: <20031210104800.3250.qmail@webmail36.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: <20031211022110.GA706@nandini> rohan george said on Wed, Dec 10, 2003 at 10:48:00AM -0000,: > least Rs. (25000+12000+20000+30000)Rs. 1 lakh. Of course, one Something is amiss here. Broadband does not provid a static IP, AFAIK. If I am correct, the esimate is on the lower side by 30K. -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://in.geocities.com/paivakil +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ From auskadi at tvcabo.co.mz Tue Dec 9 12:56:54 2003 From: auskadi at tvcabo.co.mz (auskadi) Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 09:26:54 +0200 Subject: [Commons-Law] legal portals In-Reply-To: <20031209144150.27E6E28D99B@mail.sarai.net> References: <20031209144150.27E6E28D99B@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <20031209072654.6398.qmail@netcabo.co.mz> Funny how things collide I just got a job (yuck) to make a legal data base for mozambique it is owned by some lawyers but I am trying to make it as open as possible - its an intersting challenge balancing privte busienss intersts, a law firms wish to keep somethings to themselves and a open legal database. Here in Mozambique bascially there is NO legal info available so anything is better than nothing.... there is no much on the web yet but it will grow a bit over the next few weeks www.mozlegal.com Martin From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Thu Dec 11 14:58:34 2003 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 01:28:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: From Sudhir : Re: [Commons-Law] Re: Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free OmnibusLegal Portal Message-ID: <20031211092834.65201.qmail@web13602.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "sudhir krishnaswamy" Subject: Re: [Commons-Law] Re: Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free OmnibusLegal Portal Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 08:29:34 +0000 Size: 1840 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20031211/db73ce8e/attachment.mht From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Thu Dec 11 15:07:43 2003 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 01:37:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free OmnibusLegal Portal In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20031211093743.50166.qmail@web13609.mail.yahoo.com> Hi sudhir While i agree that it should be the role of the state to proivide the information etc etc. I am less certain of the route of campaigning the state for it. If someone is willinhg to go ahead with the campaigning with the state idea, suprb, you have my absoulte support. But that does not in any manner preclude othe options. On the creation of a datbase, I think the conditions now are significantly different from when say, iprlawindia or even scconline etc were created. Then you did not have the bulk of materials in digital form and large part of the effort was in the scanning and the OCR'ing, with of course mistakes etc in the content. But now I think there is significant digital data available, and the task is a lot easier. I think there is however a larger issue in terms of the kind of database that one envisages and the kind of database that can be provided by state services. If it is the first level of just SC and high court cases, then sure, but myt idea of database is not merely that, the possibility that it throws up of collaborative and simultaneousd production of archives in specialised areas is what interests me the most. The good old classical model of state being the provider of information is model which I think is a little dated. Forget online libraries, where do we even qualtative libraries with books and reporters? The fascinating point of the contemporary is the fcat that you dont have to wait for my baap to bestow services. Even if the state did provide the raw data, I think the more interesting question for us is hw do we convert these into critcal public datbases. Lawrence __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/ From Boris.Rotenberg at IUE.it Thu Dec 11 16:23:22 2003 From: Boris.Rotenberg at IUE.it (Rotenberg, Boris) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 11:53:22 +0100 Subject: RIF: [Commons-Law] Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free OmnibusLegal Portal Message-ID: <23AC77D3C647384BA97ABF855795ACE96A182B@MAILSRV2.iue.private> well, as usual it might sometimes be possible to find compromises between civilised people: of course we don't need to wait for the State to take our hand and build the database. But it would be nice if the State/administration took on its role as a provider of basic transparency in legal information and provide me the (mainly financial)means and logistical support for building this database. Boriska -----Messaggio originale----- Da: Lawrence Liang [mailto:lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com] Inviato: gio 11/12/2003 10.37 A: commons-law at sarai.net Cc: Oggetto: [Commons-Law] Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free OmnibusLegal Portal Hi sudhir While i agree that it should be the role of the state to proivide the information etc etc. I am less certain of the route of campaigning the state for it. If someone is willinhg to go ahead with the campaigning with the state idea, suprb, you have my absoulte support. But that does not in any manner preclude othe options. On the creation of a datbase, I think the conditions now are significantly different from when say, iprlawindia or even scconline etc were created. Then you did not have the bulk of materials in digital form and large part of the effort was in the scanning and the OCR'ing, with of course mistakes etc in the content. But now I think there is significant digital data available, and the task is a lot easier. I think there is however a larger issue in terms of the kind of database that one envisages and the kind of database that can be provided by state services. If it is the first level of just SC and high court cases, then sure, but myt idea of database is not merely that, the possibility that it throws up of collaborative and simultaneousd production of archives in specialised areas is what interests me the most. The good old classical model of state being the provider of information is model which I think is a little dated. Forget online libraries, where do we even qualtative libraries with books and reporters? The fascinating point of the contemporary is the fcat that you dont have to wait for my baap to bestow services. Even if the state did provide the raw data, I think the more interesting question for us is hw do we convert these into critcal public datbases. Lawrence __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ commons-law mailing list commons-law at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law From karim at sarai.net Thu Dec 11 16:54:04 2003 From: karim at sarai.net (Aniruddha Shankar) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 16:54:04 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free OmnibusLegal Portal In-Reply-To: <20031211093743.50166.qmail@web13609.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20031211093743.50166.qmail@web13609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3FD853D4.6040500@sarai.net> Dear all, In my opinion, the biggest hurdle towards setting up a legal portal is, simply, MONEY. I believe there are dedicated people who would put in their time and effort into a legal portal - provided they were at least paid a living wage. Setting up a free omnibus legal portal: Basic structure : Central hub of co-ordinator(s)( at least 2 (?) ), Modest office premises, 1 Administrative staffer, other Contributors networked through the Internet, at least 1 Tech person, 1 Content Editing person, possibly even 1 design person. Entity acquires, through purchase / licensing the digitised copies of judgements / materials in areas not already covered by other entities on the Internet. Capital Costs: 1. Deposit towards rent on office building 2. Computers and networking, fax machine, photocopier (?) 3. Cost of acquiring digitised legal content 4. Cost of designing webpage / graphics Recurring costs 1. Salary for regular employees 2. Honorarium / At-cost compensation for other employees 3. Infrastructural costs - telephone, water, electricity, internet connectivity 4. Web hosting 5. Maintenance 6. Consumables 7. Rent If the entity gets, oh, (to hazard a figure off the top of my head), enough money to spend about 2.5 lakhs a month on Recurring costs and say 30 lakhs on the Capital front, it'd be comfortable. It'd be great if such an organisation could focus on what it was good at - providing legal content and not be forced to focus on what it shouldn't be doing - providing a revenue stream for profit-motivated funders (however altruistic). Karim the dot.bombed From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Thu Dec 11 17:56:52 2003 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 17:56:52 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free OmnibusLegal Portal In-Reply-To: <20031211093743.50166.qmail@web13609.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20031211093743.50166.qmail@web13609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20031211122652.GB4130@nandini> Lawrence Liang said on Thu, Dec 11, 2003 at 01:37:43AM -0800,: > certain of the route of campaigning the state for it. > If someone is willinhg to go ahead with the > campaigning with the state idea, suprb, you have my > absoulte support. Speaking of State activities, few days back, the MIT (www.mit.gov.in) called for an opinion on framing rules u/s 87 of IT Act on formats to be used in public communication. Apparently, we missed out on it. Importance of the rules is that if the govt uses closed / non standard / proprietary / encumbered (by patents, etc) formats to provide data, public would be left high and dry. > then sure, but myt idea of database is not merely > that, the possibility that it throws up of > collaborative and simultaneousd production of archives > in specialised areas is what interests me the most. Once the info is available in digital format, the task of making it available to specialised audience is quite easy. But, if the US situation is any indicator, such services can be provided free of cost if, and only if the provider is an academic institute, or a government department. Private providers add value by enabling easier cross reference searches (like decisions from other jurisdictions, overruled decisions, etc). -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://in.geocities.com/paivakil +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ From monica at sarai.net Thu Dec 11 22:20:35 2003 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 22:20:35 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Distributed Creativity on prc@sarai.net Message-ID: "This week Sarai.net will be co-hosting an online forum, Distributed Creativity, with Eyebeam, New York's non-profit center for digital arts and new media. The topic, "Mod the Market: Innovations in Commerce," will be on the (prc, and hopefully commons-law) list and address issues in the context of network technologies, opensource movements and how innovations in these fields affect ideas and realities of the market. This nomadic forum has been traveling from California to New York to Ireland to Australia via co-hosts Creative Commons, DATA, Rhizome, Fibreculture and has now arrived in Delhi at Sarai.net. Please feel free to join in the conversation, by joining prc at sarai.net (https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/prc). For more information on Eyebeam or forum participants, go to: http://www.eyebeam.org/distributedcreativity. " -- Monica Narula Sarai, CSDS 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From bnambiar at vsnl.com Fri Dec 12 09:00:21 2003 From: bnambiar at vsnl.com (Balan Nambiar) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2003 09:00:21 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] delete Message-ID: <004f01c3c061$ab4c2240$b18241db@mr> Kindly delete my address from your mailing list. BN -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20031212/2979ba51/attachment.html From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Sat Dec 13 10:28:53 2003 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2003 20:58:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Commons-Law] FW: Patent Recutionism Message-ID: <20031213045853.80316.qmail@web13609.mail.yahoo.com> >From Alex Macfie [alex-list at ffii.org.uk] There is a passage from chapter 1 of The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins (polemic evolutionist and atheist) in which he discusses 'hierarchical reductionism' --- the use of different layers of abstraction to explain how machines or living things work. This got me thinking about one kind of sophistry used by the pro-patent crowd to justify software patents. ".. if you asked me how a motor car worked you would think me somewhat pompous if I answered in terms of Newton's laws and the laws of thermodynamics, and downright obscurantist if I answered in terms of fundamental particles. It is doubtless true that at bottom the behaviour of a motor car is to be explained in terms of interactions between fundamental particles. But it is much more useful to explain it in terms of interactions between pistons, cylinders and sparking plugs" "The behaviour of a computer can be explained in terms of interactions between semiconductor electronic gates, and the behaviour of these, in turn, is explained by physicists at yet lower levels. ... to understand the workings of computers, we prefer a preliminary explanation in terms of about half a dozen major subcomponents --- memory, processing mill, backing store, control unit, input--output handler etc." Of course, the behaviour of software is best explained at an even higher level of abstraction, in terms of abstract logic, and to explain it in terms of the components Dawkins refers to is one way of creating trivial software patents (see http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/anatomy-trivial-patent.txt for one such example of obscurantism). The Cadtrak "XOR cursor" patent is sometimes justified on the basis that at the time the patent was filed, it was not as easy to write to the video memory then available. Therefore 'XOR'ing was a difficult operation. This is, of course, sophistry, because regardless of the technology on which video memory is based and the way one writes to it, a xor is a xor and can be expected to have the same effect on the screen when it is applied to video memory. See slide 14 on http://www.ex.ac.uk/~mmaziz/com1409/lect6.pdf also about half-way down this pro-swpat document http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/6805/articles/int-prop/heckel-debunking.html To describe a software method as a technological process because of the "technical" nature of the apparatus is rather like describing the working of a car in terms of fundamental particles. This also helps explain why software patents are of zero use in describing a technique. It may be true that a software method can be described in terms of physical interactions between different parts of a computer system but that isn't a useful way of thinking of it, because these physical interactions are at a lower layer of abstraction from the useful effect of the software method. Referring to "reductionism" as the art of explaining things in terms of their most fundamental parts, Dawkins then states "no-one is a reductionist in any sense worth being against". Obviously he did not know about the patent establishment, who deliberately use reductionism to pull wool over people's eyes, to make out a simple technique to be much more complicated than it actually is thru use of an inappropriately low level of abstraction. Alex http://www.ffii.org.uk/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/ From sanjaybhatia at justice.com Sat Dec 13 17:58:37 2003 From: sanjaybhatia at justice.com (sanjay bhatia) Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 04:28:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: Open Source Access for Basic Legal Materials Message-ID: <20031213042838.13980.h013.c014.wm@mail.justice.com.criticalpath.net> For those who are interested, the Karnataka High Court decisions reported in ILR (Karnataka Series) are now available at http://karnatakajudiciary.kar.nic.in/ilr.htm . These cases are in .pdf format without any search facilities. On a rough "guesstimate", less than two percent of the Karnataka High Court decisions are reported in the ILR (Karnataka Series). Nonetheless, it is quite laudable that the State has taken this initiative of putting up these cases on the net. Sanjay On 7 Dec 2003 17:34:17 -0000, "rohan george" wrote: I agree that in india, its rather hard to find proper government sponsored sites for legal information. On the other hand, I have to give it to all those individuals out there who actually take the trouble to put up basic legal materials for access to all. I also think that if one knows where to look, one could find a lot of basic legal information in india, except maybe for high court and tribunal decisions. For example, For Bare Acts, you have http://www.mahalibrary.com/ as well as http://www.indialawinfo.com/ Membership for the first is free, though membership for the second is paid. however, the second has enough free resources such as bare acts, sample agreements and notifications to be quite useful. For cases, at least supreme court decisions seeem well covered with http://www.supremecourtonline.com/ This site seems to be run by a publisher in chandigarh. I dont know what they get out of it, but they're still doing it. The major problem however, seems to be more of a matter of a proper search engine with proper cross referencing facilities. Something sadly lacking on most sites, and definitely on the government sites. It is this which makes searching on the paid sites like manupatra, lexisnexis and westlaw so much better. I think its quite possible to make some sort of an omnibus legal portal  nowadays. The only problem is getting all the data to "one place", so to speak, on the net, and developing a proper search engine, without which, you're largely gone when searching online. _________________________________________________ FindLaw - Free Case Law, Jobs, Library, Community http://www.FindLaw.com Get your FREE @JUSTICE.COM email! http://mail.Justice.com From sunil at mahiti.org Sun Dec 14 02:22:45 2003 From: sunil at mahiti.org (sunil abraham) Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 20:52:45 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Corporate control of IP in context Message-ID: <1071344018.513.29.camel@box> News Release 5 December 2003 ETC Group www.etcgroup.org Oligopoly, Inc. -- Concentration in Corporate Power: 2003 The ETC Group today released a new report on concentration in corporate power. The 18-page report entitled, "Oligopoly, Inc.," documents eye-popping trends in corporate consolidation in the life sciences industry. The full report is available at: www.etcgroup.org For the past 20 years, ETC Group (formerly as RAFI) has monitored corporate concentration in commercial farming, food and health. This year, ETC Group's report also includes the emerging field of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology refers to the manipulation of matter at the level of atoms and molecules, the building blocks of the entire natural world. According to ETC Group's report, transnational firms are overwhelming governments and subverting national sovereignty. Based on 2002 statistics, over half of the world's 100 largest economic entities are transnational corporations, not nations. Wal-Mart is bigger than Sweden; Home Depot (a hardware and building supply retailer) is a bigger economic entity than New Zealand. When governments serve corporate interests rather than the interests of citizens, democracy is undermined, diversity is destroyed and human rights are jeopardized. "Oligopoly, Inc." examines the following sectors in more detail: * PHARMA: The top 10 companies control an estimated 53% market share of the world's leading 118 drug firms. * BIOTECH & GENOMICS: The top 10 firms account for 54% of the biotech sectors' $42,000 million ($42 billion) revenues. * ANIMAL PHARMA: The top 10 companies control 62% of the $13,400 million world market. * SEEDS: The top 10 companies control one-third of the $23,300 million commercial seed market. * PESTICIDES: The top 10 firms control 80% of the $27,800 million global pesticide market. * FOOD RETAIL: The top 10 mega-grocers control 57% of the total sales of the world's leading 30 food retailers. * NANOTECH: Public & private sector investment in nanotechnology is an estimated $5,000-$6,000 million per annum. Corporate consolidation and converging technologies are driving economic, social and political issues that range far beyond the borders of any single country. In addition to campaigns waged by civil society and peoples' movements at the local and national levels, reform of corporate governance will require that the United Nations gain the capacity to monitor and regulate corporate governance. Beyond governance, the international community must create the capacity to track, evaluate and accept or reject new technologies and their products through an International Convention on the Evaluation of New Technologies (ICENT). For more information, please contact: Hope Shand or Kathy Jo Wetter: +(919) 960-5223 email: hope at etcgroup.org Pat Mooney +(204) 453-5259 email: etc at etcgroup.org Silvia Ribeiro +(52) 55 55 63 26 64 email: silvia at etcgroup.org Jim Thomas +44 18652 07818 email: jim at etcgroup.org -- Sunil Abraham, sunil at mahiti.org http://www.mahiti.org MAHITI Infotech Pvt. Ltd.'Reducing the cost and complexity of ICTs' 314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA Ph/Fax: +91 80 4150580. Mobile: 98455 12611 "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have one idea and we exchange these ideas,then each of us will have two ideas" George B. Shaw From sudhir75 at hotmail.com Sun Dec 14 18:24:48 2003 From: sudhir75 at hotmail.com (Sudhir) Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 12:54:48 -0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free OmnibusLegalPortal In-Reply-To: <3FD853D4.6040500@sarai.net> Message-ID: <002701c3c241$74d69ab0$842b01a3@Sudhir> Dear all I agree with -----Karim that the most daunting element of a databasing project would be spiraling costs, and -----Mahesh that it is crucial that the State maintains information resources using non-proprietary standards After Sanjay pointed it out, I've had a look at the Karnataka High Court website which contains a small database of the Indian Law Reporter series. This is certainly a step in the right direction and I hope to speak with some of the people involved in this project on how we may collaborate to improve on that effort. Will keep the list posted on that one... Best Sudhir -----Original Message----- From: commons-law-bounces at sarai.net [mailto:commons-law-bounces at sarai.net] On Behalf Of Aniruddha Shankar Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2003 11:24 AM To: commons-law at sarai.net Subject: Re: [Commons-Law] Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free OmnibusLegalPortal Dear all, In my opinion, the biggest hurdle towards setting up a legal portal is, simply, MONEY. I believe there are dedicated people who would put in their time and effort into a legal portal - provided they were at least paid a living wage. Setting up a free omnibus legal portal: Basic structure : Central hub of co-ordinator(s)( at least 2 (?) ), Modest office premises, 1 Administrative staffer, other Contributors networked through the Internet, at least 1 Tech person, 1 Content Editing person, possibly even 1 design person. Entity acquires, through purchase / licensing the digitised copies of judgements / materials in areas not already covered by other entities on the Internet. Capital Costs: 1. Deposit towards rent on office building 2. Computers and networking, fax machine, photocopier (?) 3. Cost of acquiring digitised legal content 4. Cost of designing webpage / graphics Recurring costs 1. Salary for regular employees 2. Honorarium / At-cost compensation for other employees 3. Infrastructural costs - telephone, water, electricity, internet connectivity 4. Web hosting 5. Maintenance 6. Consumables 7. Rent If the entity gets, oh, (to hazard a figure off the top of my head), enough money to spend about 2.5 lakhs a month on Recurring costs and say 30 lakhs on the Capital front, it'd be comfortable. It'd be great if such an organisation could focus on what it was good at - providing legal content and not be forced to focus on what it shouldn't be doing - providing a revenue stream for profit-motivated funders (however altruistic). Karim the dot.bombed _______________________________________________ commons-law mailing list commons-law at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Sun Dec 14 22:07:23 2003 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 22:07:23 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free OmnibusLegalPortal In-Reply-To: <002701c3c241$74d69ab0$842b01a3@Sudhir> References: <3FD853D4.6040500@sarai.net> <002701c3c241$74d69ab0$842b01a3@Sudhir> Message-ID: <20031214163723.GA1957@nandini> Sudhir said on Sun, Dec 14, 2003 at 12:54:48PM -0000,: > it is crucial that the State maintains information > resources using non-proprietary standards I just came across something more:- http://gnu.org.in/philosophy/mitrules.html -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://in.geocities.com/paivakil +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 17 10:39:13 2003 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 21:09:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Commons-Law] thougts and possibilites of open law archive project Message-ID: <20031217050913.79545.qmail@web13607.mail.yahoo.com> Hi all we have been having a discussion at the law school on how to can tajke forward some of the open law ideas that we have been discussing in this group. I am forwarding a message sent by tarunabh on the topic. Please feel free to add your comments/ suggestions Lawrence Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: tarunabh at nls.ac.in Subject: Re: thougts and possibilites of open law archive project Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 21:14:19 +0530 (IST) Size: 7592 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20031216/ad5e8bf0/attachment.mht From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 17 14:01:58 2003 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 00:31:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Commons-Law] thought on open law archive Message-ID: <20031217083158.94005.qmail@web13601.mail.yahoo.com> hi all resending the previous mail as a text messgae rather than as a attachment, Lawrence hi all, am sending a detailed concept note pasted below. see if this is ok and let me know as soon as possible. then we will send it out on all the class mailing lists. ---------------------------------- Open Law India This is a proposal to create a public legal database on the internet out of all the projects that all of us do in the course of our five years in law school. Even a slap-dash overnight project would still serve as a compilation of data; some kind of starting point for someone somewhere trying to do research on that particular area of Indian law or any law from an Indian perspective. Most of them, hopefully, will also provide a review of literature in a given area. India sorely lacks any kind of freely available public legal research resource. Even basic legal information in the form of cases etc are not available, much less qualitative information which serves or acts as introduction to legal community, practitioners, academics, researchers, students etc. The tradition of legal research has always been to see research as an isolated activity, with end results in the form of articles etc; rather than a serious engagement with the public. To add to the complexity of the problem, increasingly more and more information is being privatized in the form of expensive databases, and the privatization of information. This comes in a strange way into India, before we have even begun to build a platform for open legal access, we are moving into a phase where more and more domains of commercialized legal information (manupatra etc). This project seeks to make a humble contribution towards addressing that problem. It is a very simple solution since most projects these days are done in digital format with soft copies being available. Just the sheer numbers should give you an idea of how big a leap this project is towards filling the vacuum that currently exists in the sphere of Indian legal research. In one year 4800 projects are written in law school on pretty much every little nook and corner of Indian law and although a good chunk of these projects would not be of a standard worthy of �publication� in the traditional sense of the word, these would still serve as a really useful resource for anyone who is wishing to do legal research in India, or even anyone somewhere else in the world wishing to do some work on law in India. Of these even if we assume that we can make available 10%, we would have an invaluable resource of over 480 papers a year being made available in the public domain, not to mention probable contributions from other institutions in the country. Some copyright liability issues also attach to the initiative. The author has to realize that she undertakes the peril if she has plagiarized the paper, of being caught or sued etc. Though the copyright law for academic use is very liberal and in most cases all it requires is acknowledgment of the source, still the liability will be entirely of the contributor. License will include disclaimers and indemnities; certain amount of good faith act required from students while selecting papers that they will make available. The project seeks to create through a networked collaborative environment, made possible by the internet and digital information, an open platform that provides articles and papers on various legal issues. Most interventions have always relied on institutional support/ initiative (i.e. universities etc). This initiative is also to demonstrate that non institutional initiatives are sustainable. We would also like to clarify that this is not a journal, this is a resource base which could in the future be converted into a peer reviewed site for academic resources. The idea is not to make it another CV-fattening �publication� but just to allow almost all contributions to be made available with absolutely minimal screening to ensure its not entirely cogged and makes at least some sense. This way, instead of the fruits of your sleepless nights (however few) just ending up at the raddiwala (which is where they go right now, in case you didn�t know), it would go into this database where it can serve to assist someone who is doing some research somewhere in the world. There needs to be a detailed discussion to thrash out some logistical issues and for which we are meeting with everyone interested (even if you are not interested, just land up). The technical issues are pretty much sorted out, server space is being provided by the Wag institute for new and old media (?????) and assistance is being given for content management from mahiti.org. Lawrence from ALF and Sunil from Mahiti will be here on Tuesday, 16th of December at 6.30 pm in the quad. The other initiative in this regard is pursuing the Law School authorities to make all Law School publications (Student Advocate, March of the Law, even Doctoral theses) available on its official website. The advantages include increasing the circulation and popularity of Law School Journals as well as having some academic content on our website, besides taking the idealist stand of supporting free and open accessibility of information. Currently, the Student Advocate, despite being a really good quality journal (to hazard a guess, it should rank among the very best in India in terms of quality), has very poor circulation. Check out the Calicut Medical Journal which recently went open access at http://www.calicutmedicaljournal.org We met the Director today and discussed the idea. He was very open about the idea, and said personally he agreed with the proposal. But he first wants to hear if there are any other views in this regard within the student community. Just to clarify lest it causes confusion, the first idea, that is of putting up projects on a website, does not involve the institution in any manner, nor will the Law School website have anything to do with it. It is entirely a voluntary non-official initiative. Only the issue of open access to Law School Journals involves the institution. Please mail any suggestions, queries, comments to lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com.in Also, if you could come up with a better name for the initiative than �Open Law India� that our unimaginative souls could think of, please feel free to suggest. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/ From voices2 at vsnl.net Thu Dec 18 10:27:13 2003 From: voices2 at vsnl.net (Deepak Menon) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 10:27:13 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Info on IPR & Culture Message-ID: <004e01c3c523$675a3c40$02c809c0@volunteer> Hi all, Thanks, Lawrence, for adding me to the mailing list. Would just like to introduce myself to the others- I'm Deepak Menon, working with a development communications NGO, VOICES, based in Bangalore. Further information is available on our website www.voicesforall.org VOICES is looking at doing a seminar on "IPR & indigenous communities" with specific reference to IPR in the context of culture & communications, in Bangalore, around Feb-March 2004. I'd be really grateful if people from this group could give us inputs on some currently relevant issues which could be part of the agenda for such a seminar. Thanks & Regards Deepak Menon Program Executive VOICES -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20031218/05142a4f/attachment.html From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Thu Dec 18 11:01:50 2003 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 11:01:50 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] FSF on standards in government Message-ID: <20031218053150.GA1253@nandini> The Free Software Foundation of India has written to the Govt. of India on standards file formats to be used in public communication. See:- http://gnu.org.in/philosophy/mitrules.html The page is pretty large (36k+); so I am not copying it here. -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://in.geocities.com/paivakil +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Thu Dec 18 11:04:16 2003 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 11:04:16 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Info on IPR & Culture In-Reply-To: <004e01c3c523$675a3c40$02c809c0@volunteer> References: <004e01c3c523$675a3c40$02c809c0@volunteer> Message-ID: <20031218053416.GA1517@nandini> Deepak Menon said on Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 10:27:13AM +0530,: > be really grateful if people from this group could give us inputs > on some currently relevant issues which could be part of the > agenda for such a seminar. Good thing. Start from:- Whether documenting traditional knowledge is really beneficial for its protection? -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://in.geocities.com/paivakil +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ From patrice at xs4all.nl Thu Dec 18 12:30:27 2003 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 08:00:27 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] Info on IPR & Culture In-Reply-To: <20031218053416.GA1517@nandini> References: <004e01c3c523$675a3c40$02c809c0@volunteer> <20031218053416.GA1517@nandini> Message-ID: <20031218070027.GA31444@xs4all.nl> On Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 11:04:16AM +0530, Mahesh T. Pai wrote: > Deepak Menon said on Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 10:27:13AM +0530,: > > > be really grateful if people from this group could give us inputs > > on some currently relevant issues which could be part of the > > agenda for such a seminar. > > Good thing. Start from:- > > Whether documenting traditional knowledge is really beneficial for > its protection? > Good question. In a recent article (published in the WSIS special edition of World-Information.Org) Vandana Shiva argued that originla documentation of traditional knowledge was not accepted in the United States Patent Office as 'prior art' (V.S., "Biopiracy: Need to Change Western IPR Systems") From ravikant at sarai.net Fri Dec 26 11:14:09 2003 From: ravikant at sarai.net (ravikant) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2003 11:14:09 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] researchers needed Message-ID: <200312261114.09023.ravikant@sarai.net> Dr. Suman Sahai of the Gene Campaign has been looking for a couple of researchers. Please read her message below and circulate it further. cheers and happy new uear ravikant ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Re: [Reader-list] convergence, civic style Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2003 12:06:22 +0530 From: dr sahai To: ravikant Dear Ravikant I had sent you an email to which I have no response. I had written to say we were looking for researchers to work with us on two issues: GM crops and , Indigenous Knowledge. Can you circulate this somewhere? Do we put up a notice/s? How should we proceed? Would appreciate your getting back on this. Happy new year! Suman Sahai **************************************************************************** ************************* Dr. Suman Sahai GENE CAMPAIGN J-235/A, Sainik Farms, Khanpur New Delhi - 110 062 INDIA Ph: +91 11 26517248 Fx: +91 11 26965961 Email - genecamp at vsnl.com Web - http://www.genecampaign.org ----------------------------------------------------------------------------