From simo at mahiti.org Thu Apr 1 14:47:31 2004 From: simo at mahiti.org (Simo-Pekka Aalto) Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 09:17:31 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] [Fwd: [ilug-goa] Finally, the Simputer (by T Byfield)] Message-ID: <406BDE2B.1070601@mahiti.org> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [ilug-goa] Finally, the Simputer (by T Byfield) Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 05:47:29 +0530 (IST) From: Frederick Noronha (FN) Reply-To: ilug-goa at yahoogroups.com To: ilug-goa at yahoogroups.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2004 20:17:02 -0500 From: t byfield Subject: finally, the simputer slashdot notes the release, finally, of the 'simputer.'[1] the funny thing is, it doesn't much resemble the obect of the heartfelt rhetoric about how it would be the missing link needed to connect the impoverished rural popu- lations of south asia -- at least, they don't figure very heavily in the 'gallery' of pictures[2] showing it being used as an MP3 player by an urban teenybopper, as a handy CDMA-compatible(!) interface for surfing the net, as a way for bourgie housewives to plan party expenses, for busy execs to sort their day, etc. with a few exceptions (screen-based hindi and kannada keyboards[3] -- 'which you can invoke whenever that patriotic itch takes over') it seems to be a pretty generic touchscreen PDA, right down to the GUI's iconic buttons: cascading 'stacks' of papers, magnifying glasses annotated with +/-, trash/rubbish/dustbin, envelope, a speaker in cross-section, question marks, checkbox, and the like. the site also has a 'funzone' with links to ('legal!') MP3 sources and the normal litany: yahoo mail, WiReD news, ananova, merriam-webster's online dictionary, etc, etc. the site also bills the device as able to interpret haptic input: All this is possible thanks to the built-in Flip Flop Motion Sensor (geeks bizarrely call it "accelerometer"), again a first for the Amida Simputer.[4] the product line and pricing are pretty standard, too: three models that range from US$240 to $480.[5] as is connectivity: 20 free hours of the 'gold' service from the indian ISP sify[6] -- after which 500 hours of dialup is ~US$76. a pop3 email account comes free with the two higher- end models (the lowest of which is ironically [or not] called the 'en- terprise edition'). and only the same two higher-end models include IR or USB ports, which presumably would be useful for device-to-device communications -- a crucial function, one would think, for users whose connectivity is limited by cost or available services. but, really, the FAQ[7] says it all, albeit in dodgily polemical terms. for example: 3. Isn't a Simputer for poor and illiterate people? It is true that the Amida Simputer is a very affordable computer, and that it is simple enough to be used by people who no prior experience with computers. [...] 8. Does Amida have MS-Word and Excel? Amida's word processors and spreadsheet are especially designed to be of maximum utility to you, wherever you go. e.g., you can use Amida to write and print notes in not only English but also Indian languages like Hindi and Kannada. Or, if you do not want to use a keyboard, you can handwrite on Amida in any language you please. Similarly, Amida has a spreadsheet (Khatha) which is a great tool for personal finances, especially when on the move. But if you specifically mean Word and Excel, the answer is "no". We believe that Word and Excel are unsuitable for mobile usage. Think of it this way: Amida heralds a new wave of mobile computing in which word processors and spreadsheets do not have to look like Word and Excel! afaict, the simputer site is silent on the subject of the OS running the device; but the site's screenshots look pretty linuxish, which would support past reports about the simputer's development. it'll be interesting to see how this pans out. Win CE seems to support hindi, at least on the level of GUI text,[8] as well as unicode in the form of a BMP of ISO 10646;[9] since MS doesn't specify which unicode version they're referring to, i assume it's the current one, which in- cludes several south asian scripts (bengali, devanagari, gujarati, gur- mukhi, kannada, tamil, telugu, etc). so, (many) other issues, the sim- puter looks like it's lagging far behind mainstream mobile devices in terms of language support. and, to the extent that language support is a mirror, however dark, of local prestige, i expect it'll be an uphill battle for the simputer: if it's perceived as being more ideological than practical (i.e., in step with the dominant face of IT in south asia: MS), its second selling point will be that it's locallly designed and maybe even locally assembled -- though i wouldn't bet on the latter. cheers, t [1] http://slashdot.org/articles/04/03/27/1744204.shtml [2] http://amidasimputer.com/gallery/ [3] http://amidasimputer.com/languages/ [4] http://amidasimputer.com/flip-flop/ [5] http://www.amidasimputer.com/models/ [6] http://www.sifycorp.com/aboutus.asp [7] http://amidasimputer.com/faqs/ [8] http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/guide_ppc/htm/metabase_jycp.asp [9] http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnce30/html/locplatform30.asp # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net - ------------------------------ To Post a message, send it to: ilug-goa at yahoogroups.com To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: ilug-goa-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com From sunil at mahiti.org Thu Apr 1 18:03:02 2004 From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham) Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 12:33:02 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Workshop on Open Access/E-Prints Software Message-ID: <1080822781.648.94.camel@box> Dear friends: Greetings from MSSRF, Chennai. Here is an announcement about a workshop on Open Access to scientific and scholarly literature and an application form. Please spread the word. Preference will be givn to candidates from large universities, INDEST institutions and government laboratories (CSIR, ICAR, ICMR, DAE, DST, etc.). Please forward this announcement to heads of institutions and heads of libraries in all institutions in the areas of social sciences and humanities. They may send their nominations/ applications to Mr S Senthilkumaran, Associate Director, Informatics, MSSRF, Chennai 600 113, before 10 April 2004. His email address: . Look forward to hearing from you. Best wishes. Subbiah Arunachalam Distinguished Fellow, MSSRF ------- Workshop on Open Access Overview All scientists, including social scientists, need to publish their findings. Indeed, research is incomplete as long as it remains unpublished. The last few years have witnessed the unprecedented rise in the subscription costs of journals and even well-endowed institutions in rich countries find it difficult to retain journal subscriptions. The situation in developing countries like India is even worse. Besides, others in the rest of the world do not really read much of the work that we do in India. What is more, if our scientists publish their papers in expensive journals, then even other Indian scientists do not read them, as not many Indian institutions may subscribe to those journals. It is for this reason that the open access (OA) movement is gaining ground around the world - both in the advanced countries and in the developing countries. Indeed, OA will be of much greater advantage to India than to the western countries. Physicists have been placing their preprints and postprints for well over 13 years in a centralized archive called arXiv, which has more than 15 mirror sites including one located in India (Matscience, Chennai). There are several other services such as Cogprints (for cognitive sciences), CiteSeer (for computer science) and RePEc (for economics). Currently, institutional archives are favoured, as they work to satisfy the felt needs of both individual scientists and their institutions. There are at least three sets of software available, all of them free, to set up such interoperable institutional archives. This workshop aims to help Indian scientists (representing general and agricultural universities and government laboratories under the various councils and departments) to acquire the skills necessary to be able to set up and maintain institutional open archives. This workshop will provide training in Eprints software developed at the University of Southampton and the Open Archives Interoperability protocol. There is great interest in open access around the world. In the USA, Congressman Martin Sabo has introduced a bill suggesting that findings of all publicly funded research must be made freely available to all. In the UK, the Parliament has appointed a committee to inquire current and potentially useful practices in science publishing. Several discussion lists are actively promoting exchange of views on open access. The Budapest Open Access Initiative is providing funds to promote open access initiatives. In India, INSA devoted a whole day for a seminar on open access at its annual meeting held at NCL, Pune, in late December 2003. Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, held two workshops on open access journals in March 2002. The Workshop On a suggestion from Prof. M S Valiathan, President of the Indian National Science Academy, the Bioinformatics Centre of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation will be holding two identical three-day workshops with a view to developing a cadre of open access experts in Indian higher educational institutions and government laboratories. We expect that before the end of the year at least a dozen institutions will have their own institutional archives up and running. There will be 20-24 participants in each workshop. Each participant and the faculty will have an Internet-connected computer on his/her desk. Dates: 2-4 May 2004 and 6-8 May 2004 Venue: M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Sambasivan Auditorium The Faculty: The workshop will be conducted by the following four experts, known for their commitment to promoting this technology worldwide: Prof. Leslie Chan of the University of Toronto and Bioline International, Dr Leslie Carr of the University of Southampton, Dr D K Sahu of MedKnow Publications, Mumbai, and Dr T B Rajashekar of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. All of them have considerable hands-on experience in open access. Participants: Higher educational institutions and government research laboratories (under the different Councils and Departments) may nominate candidates in the prescribed form. [Heads of these institutions may kindly ensure that an institutional archive is set up within three months after the conclusion of the workshop]. 4048 candidates will be selected. Participants will either be scientists or be librarians. The important thing is they should be computer savvy and committed to the cause of open access and be able to persuade scientists (faculty and students) in their respective institutions to place their research papers in the archives. Guest speakers: We are inviting Prof. M S Swaminathan, Prof. M S Valiathan, Dr R A Mashelkar and Prof. P Balaram to give guest lectures (on how they, as working scientists, view open access). Two of them will address the participants of the first workshop and the other two the second workshop. Workshop Coordinator: Subbiah Arunachalam, Distinguished Fellow, MSSRF, Chennai. His email address is . Mr S Senthilkumaran and colleagues from the Informatics Division and Ms R V Bhavani of MSSRF will provide technical and managerial support for the event. Nominations of participants may please be sent to Mr S Senthilkumaran, Associate Director, Informatics, MSSRF, Chennai 600 113, India. His email address is . All participants will be provided guesthouse accommodation and all meals. A few travel grants (First class or Second A/C class by Express train) will be made available, depending on funds available. Some Relevant Documents The Bethesda Statement http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethesda.htm http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethesda.htm> Wellcome Trust, "Scientific Publishing: A Position Statement by the Wellcome Trust in Support of Open Access Publishing," Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities Subbiah Arunachalam: India's march towards open access http://www.scidev.net/Opinions/index.cfm?fuseaction=readOpinions &itemid=243&language=1> --------- M S SWAMINATHAN RESEARCH FOUNDATION Third Cross Street, Taramani Instituional Area, Chennai 600 113 Tel: 044 2254 1229, 2254 2791 Fax: 044 2254 1319 Workshop on Open Access Nomination Institution Name and Address: No. of papers from the Institution annually: Name of the candidate: Designation Date of birth: Qualification: Familiarity with Computers and Internet: Membership in Discussion Groups: Past experience in Electronic Publishing: Familiarity with Open Access: Preferred dates: 2-4 May (Workshop 1) / 6-8 May (Workshop 2) Travel grant: Needed / Not needed Date: Signature of the recommending authority: Signature of the candidate: --------- Thanks, ಸುನೀಲ್ -- 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 51150580. Mobile: +91 80 36701931 "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 rahul.matthan at trilegal.com Thu Apr 1 14:40:08 2004 From: rahul.matthan at trilegal.com (Rahul Matthan) Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 14:40:08 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] [Fwd: [ilug-goa] Finally, the Simputer (by T Byfield)] In-Reply-To: <406BDE2B.1070601@mahiti.org> References: <406BDE2B.1070601@mahiti.org> Message-ID: <406BDC70.1020204@trilegal.com> As someone involved with the project perhaps I can shed some light for the benefit of the list. The Simputer Trust has NOT released a new Simputer. The device in question is the Amida Simputer that has been released by one of the licensees, Picopeta Simputers Pvt. Ltd, in association with BEL. The device has been distributed under the same philosophy as that set out in the Simputer manifesto which is essentially an open source hardware distribution model. As per the licensing model, where the device uses Simputer standard specifications, these have been disclosed, but where these specifications have been modified, they are not obliged to release these specifications for a period of 12 months. Whether or not this model will work in the context of hardware is a different question that I have argued at different times with members of the list. I am happy to get into a more detailed discussion on this aspect from our experience with working the model for the past 3-4 years. The device runs on Linux and has all of the features generic to handhelds in its class. I have used it and own one myself and can testify that many of the features and concepts that it uses are unique. What I do want to make a mention of is that this is a commercial retail version of the Simputer that has been released to fill a mass market demand for the device. Other versions of the device have been made in order to fulfill its "social" objectives though they have not (intentionally) been accompanied by the kind of hype that has surrounded the commercial launch of the Amida. Even on this commercial launch, they have released a sub Rs. 10,000 retail product which was the original promise of the Simputer Trust. The colour screen version costs significantly more. Cheers, Rahul Matthan Partner Trilegal Tel : +91-80-2353-6319 +91-80-2353-7032 Fax : +91-80-2363-3694 CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE The contents of this message may be legally privileged and confidential, for the use of the intended recipient(s) only. It should not be read, copied and used by anyone other than the intended recipient. If you have received this message in error,please immediately notify us at the above co-ordinates, preserve its confidentiality and delete it from your system. Thank you. Simo-Pekka Aalto wrote: > > > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: [ilug-goa] Finally, the Simputer (by T Byfield) > Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 05:47:29 +0530 (IST) > From: Frederick Noronha (FN) > Reply-To: ilug-goa at yahoogroups.com > To: ilug-goa at yahoogroups.com > > > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > > - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2004 20:17:02 -0500 > From: t byfield > Subject: finally, the simputer > > slashdot notes the release, finally, of the 'simputer.'[1] the funny > thing > is, it doesn't much resemble the obect of the heartfelt rhetoric about > how > it would be the missing link needed to connect the impoverished rural > popu- > lations of south asia -- at least, they don't figure very heavily in the > 'gallery' of pictures[2] showing it being used as an MP3 player by an > urban > teenybopper, as a handy CDMA-compatible(!) interface for surfing the net, > as a way for bourgie housewives to plan party expenses, for busy execs to > sort their day, etc. with a few exceptions (screen-based hindi and > kannada > keyboards[3] -- 'which you can invoke whenever that patriotic itch takes > over') it seems to be a pretty generic touchscreen PDA, right down to the > GUI's iconic buttons: cascading 'stacks' of papers, magnifying glasses > annotated with +/-, trash/rubbish/dustbin, envelope, a speaker in > cross-section, question marks, checkbox, and the like. the site also > has a > 'funzone' with links to ('legal!') MP3 sources and the normal litany: > yahoo > mail, WiReD news, ananova, merriam-webster's online dictionary, etc, etc. > the site also bills the device as able to interpret haptic input: > > All this is possible thanks to the built-in Flip Flop Motion > Sensor (geeks bizarrely call it "accelerometer"), again a first > for the Amida Simputer.[4] > > the product line and pricing are pretty standard, too: three models that > range from US$240 to $480.[5] as is connectivity: 20 free hours of the > 'gold' service from the indian ISP sify[6] -- after which 500 hours of > dialup is ~US$76. a pop3 email account comes free with the two higher- > end models (the lowest of which is ironically [or not] called the 'en- > terprise edition'). and only the same two higher-end models include IR > or USB ports, which presumably would be useful for device-to-device > communications -- a crucial function, one would think, for users whose > connectivity is limited by cost or available services. but, really, the > FAQ[7] says it all, albeit in dodgily polemical terms. for example: > > 3. Isn't a Simputer for poor and illiterate people? > > It is true that the Amida Simputer is a very affordable > computer, and that it is simple enough to be used by > people who no prior experience with computers. > > [...] > > 8. Does Amida have MS-Word and Excel? > > Amida's word processors and spreadsheet are especially > designed to be of maximum utility to you, wherever you > go. e.g., you can use Amida to write and print notes in > not only English but also Indian languages like Hindi > and Kannada. Or, if you do not want to use a keyboard, > you can handwrite on Amida in any language you please. > Similarly, Amida has a spreadsheet (Khatha) which is a > great tool for personal finances, especially when on > the move. > > But if you specifically mean Word and Excel, the answer > is "no". We believe that Word and Excel are unsuitable > for mobile usage. Think of it this way: Amida heralds a > new wave of mobile computing in which word processors > and spreadsheets do not have to look like Word and > Excel! > > afaict, the simputer site is silent on the subject of the OS running > the device; but the site's screenshots look pretty linuxish, which > would support past reports about the simputer's development. > > it'll be interesting to see how this pans out. Win CE seems to support > hindi, at least on the level of GUI text,[8] as well as unicode in the > form of a BMP of ISO 10646;[9] since MS doesn't specify which unicode > version they're referring to, i assume it's the current one, which in- > cludes several south asian scripts (bengali, devanagari, gujarati, gur- > mukhi, kannada, tamil, telugu, etc). so, (many) other issues, the sim- > puter looks like it's lagging far behind mainstream mobile devices in > terms of language support. and, to the extent that language support is > a mirror, however dark, of local prestige, i expect it'll be an uphill > battle for the simputer: if it's perceived as being more ideological > than practical (i.e., in step with the dominant face of IT in south > asia: MS), its second selling point will be that it's locallly designed > and maybe even locally assembled -- though i wouldn't bet on the latter. > > cheers, > t > > [1] http://slashdot.org/articles/04/03/27/1744204.shtml > [2] http://amidasimputer.com/gallery/ > [3] http://amidasimputer.com/languages/ > [4] http://amidasimputer.com/flip-flop/ > [5] http://www.amidasimputer.com/models/ > [6] http://www.sifycorp.com/aboutus.asp > [7] http://amidasimputer.com/faqs/ > [8] > http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/guide_ppc/htm/metabase_jycp.asp > > [9] > http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnce30/html/locplatform30.asp > > > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission > # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg > body > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net > > - ------------------------------ > > > To Post a message, send it to: ilug-goa at yahoogroups.com > To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: > ilug-goa-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com > > _______________________________________________ > commons-law mailing list > commons-law at sarai.net > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law From jeebesh at sarai.net Thu Apr 1 16:02:32 2004 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 16:02:32 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] rade Secrets: Intellectual Property and the Origins of American Message-ID: <406BEFC0.3060508@sarai.net> ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: [bytesforall_readers] new book -- Doron Ben-Atar, "Trade Secrets: Intellectual Property and the Origins of American Industrial Power" From: "Darius Cuplinskas" Date: Wed, March 24, 2004 10:54 pm To: "BytesForAll" -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Trade Secrets: Intellectual Property and the Origins of American Industrial Power by Doron S. Ben-Atar 304 pages, Yale University Press (April 2004) ISBN: 030010006X (available through booksellers such as Amazon - unfortunately only the $38 hardcover is on offer at the moment; no parts of it seem to be available online) Doron Ben-Atar is associate professor of history at Fordham University. Book Description During the first decades of America's existence as a nation, private citizens, voluntary associations, and government officials encouraged the smuggling of European inventions and artisans to the New World. At the same time, the young republic was developing policies that set new standards for protecting industrial innovations. This book traces the evolution of America's contradictory approach to intellectual property rights from the colonial period to the age of Jackson. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries Britain shared technological innovations selectively with its American colonies. It became less willing to do so once America's fledgling industries grew more competitive. After the Revolution, the leaders of the republic supported the piracy of European technology in order to promote the economic strength and political independence of the new nation. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the United States became a leader among industrializing nations and a major exporter of technology. It erased from national memory its years of piracy and became the world's foremost advocate of international laws regulating intellectual property. --- "Ben-Atar tells the remarkable story of how the fledgling United States used pirated technology to lay the foundation for its future industrial might even as it grappled with the timeless question of who owns knowledge, revealing a previously hidden face of the early republic. A major contribution to the field, 'Trade Secrets' should also be read by students of modern intellectual property and international economic development." -- Bruce H. Mann, University of Pennsylvania "Doron Ben-Atar's elegant study moves from customary appreciations of the Founding Fathers to the tough realities facing statesmen establishing a viable republic, technologically and commercially backward. Ben-Atar guides the reader through these thickets of intellectual thievery and smuggling with aplomb and wit." -- Peter Gay, Sterling Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University "Using a comparative, transatlantic framework, 'Trade Secrets' provides a lively, original, ironic analysis of the contradictory ways that early national and state policy makers encouraged the innovation that propelled America's industrial revolution."--Richard D. Brown is co-author of The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler "Doron Ben-Atar's 'Trade Secrets' opens a fascinating, and hitherto little-known, chapter in early American history: the importance of ‘technology piracy’ to national development. Taken as a whole, the book is a remarkable fusion of intellectual, legal, political, economic, and social history; considered page by page, it offers trenchant analysis interspersed with lively narrative vignettes. And the issues it raises, most especially those concerning intellectual property, have much currency even today."--John Demos, Yale University From sudhir75 at hotmail.com Thu Apr 1 17:35:39 2004 From: sudhir75 at hotmail.com (sudhir krishnaswamy) Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 12:05:39 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Ten Sports and Positive Free Speech Rts Message-ID: Dear Vivek Thanks for interesting response to last week's posting on Ten Sports. Though I confined my research outline to the free speech rights question I empathise with the concerns that you raised about the legal form of the court's intervention. I will respond to two specific concerns: 1. Statutory Background I am yet to see the reported judgment in the case but the newspaper accounts do not speak about any statutes the court may have considered. I can think of atleast one statute that should have been invoked - the Copyright Act 1957! Particularly s 37 which deals with broadcasting rights. TEN Sports was certainly claiming its contractual rights over broadcasting rights granted to it by the PCB, but the newspaper accounts were silent on this count! 2. Public Interest The Indian courts have for the last decade developed liberal standing rules. It is important however, for the court to determine who has standing to raise a particular legal issue. Unless the court recognizes a positive right to free speech - which any citizen may claim is breached - it is difficult to appreciate what other 'public interest' was sought to adjudicated upon by the court. 3. Article 300 - A I reckon that the Article 300 - A point you make is slightly more complex than you suggest. If the effect of a court's decision is to dispossess someone of their property then the important question that arises is whether this decision is under the 'authority of law'. We can answer this question in two ways a. dogmatically - by asserting the power of the Supreme Court to make any order it deems fit in the interests of justice b. thoughtfully - by enquiring into the validity of the courts decision - provide an account of its interpretive powers and institutional role. It's the latter more detailed enquiry that I would seek to puruse in the near future. Best Sudhir _________________________________________________________________ Easiest Money Transfer to India. Send Money To 6000 Indian Towns. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/42198.asp Easiest Way To Send Money Home! From ankitasinghania at hotmail.com Sun Apr 4 14:00:45 2004 From: ankitasinghania at hotmail.com (ankita Singhania) Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2004 08:30:45 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Ten Sports and Positive Free Speech Rts Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040404/8d0eb9d9/attachment.html From ankitasinghania at hotmail.com Sun Apr 4 19:58:48 2004 From: ankitasinghania at hotmail.com (ankita Singhania) Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2004 14:28:48 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Ten Sports and Positive Free Speech Rts Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040404/9d955dfb/attachment.html From ankitasinghania at hotmail.com Mon Apr 5 13:55:16 2004 From: ankitasinghania at hotmail.com (ankita Singhania) Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2004 08:25:16 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Ten Sports and Positive Free Speech Rights Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040405/d8cb5d2a/attachment.html From ankitasinghania at hotmail.com Tue Apr 6 12:18:38 2004 From: ankitasinghania at hotmail.com (ankita Singhania) Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 06:48:38 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] RE: Ten Sports and Positive Free Speech Rights Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040406/5a4de06e/attachment.html From aidslaw at bom5.vsnl.net.in Tue Apr 6 13:45:43 2004 From: aidslaw at bom5.vsnl.net.in (lawyers) Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 13:45:43 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] AMTC Response to Chairperson of the inter-ministerial committee to consider Test Data Protection Message-ID: <02bf01c41baf$5b44aa70$05151fac@cableinternet> Hi Please find below copy of the letter sent to Chairperson of thehigh level inter-ministerial committee to consider the implementation of Article 39 (3) of TRIPS Agreement. Affordable Medicines and Traetment Campaign (AMTC) March 9, 2004 To Mr. Pradush Sinha Secretary Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals Room No 501 A Wing, Sastri Bhavan Dr. Rajendra Prasad Road New Delhi 110 001 Dear Mr. Sinha Sub: (Committee on protection of undisclosed information under Article 39.3 of TRIPS Agreement) Affordable Medicine and Treatment Campaign (AMTC) is a national campaign aimed at creating an environment that will ensure sustained accessibility and affordability of medicines and treatment for every individual in India, including access to affordable Anti-retroviral Therapy for persons living with HIV/AIDS. It consists of civil society organisations, NGOs, patients groups, healthcare providers and concerned individuals. The campaign was initiated in 2001 with the following mission statement: The right to life and health is a fundamental right guaranteed to every person living in India and is non-negotiable. This campaign aims to demand and create an environment that will ensure sustained accessibility and affordability of medicines and treatment for every individual in India, including access to affordable Anti-Retroviral Therapy for persons living with HIV/AIDS. This campaign shall be democratic and participatory. It will seek the mobilization of communities and civil society to make state, national and international agencies and industry accountable for securing health for all. We have learned that Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals has set up a high level inter-ministerial committee to consider the implementation of Article 39 (3) of TRIPS Agreement. We are concerned about the protection test data (data exclusivity) because such monopoly rights have serious implications on the accessibility and affordability of those drugs. We fear that data exclusivity may lead to patent type protection and thus undermine the right to access drugs, a prime component of right to health. We also noticed that there is no representation of civil society in the committee. We think that civil society should be consulted and heard before finalising any decision on the question of data exclusivity because people at large, as an affected party, have a right to be consulted and heard. Hence, we would request you to give us an opportunity to place our views on the implementation of Article 39 (3) along with other interested groups and individuals. We would also like to know the names and address of the committee members and its terms of reference. We look forward to hearing from you at the earliest. With warm regards, For AMTC Anand Grover Project Director, Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit, Mumbai -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040406/ff1fa24a/attachment.html From sudhir75 at hotmail.com Tue Apr 6 19:06:59 2004 From: sudhir75 at hotmail.com (sudhir krishnaswamy) Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 13:36:59 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] AMTC Response to Chairperson of the inter-ministerialcommittee to consider Test Data Protection Message-ID: Dear Anand While sharing your concern on the scope and application of Article 39(3) of TRIPs and making an intervention before the Inter-Ministerial Committee I was unclear about a few details: 1. As I read it Art 39(3) applies only to test data relating to those drugs which have a Exclusive Marketing Rights. Have AIDs drugs been granted EMRs in India? 2. I am not sure how test data may strengthen or weaken a patent claim or for that matter affect the price of drugs. Is it that the test data is crucial for generic producers to produce generic versions or is there some other linkage? Thanks Best Sudhir _________________________________________________________________ Contact brides & grooms FREE! http://www.shaadi.com/ptnr.php?ptnr=hmltag Only on www.shaadi.com. Register now! From shamnadbasheer at yahoo.co.in Tue Apr 6 20:08:03 2004 From: shamnadbasheer at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Shamnad=20Basheer?=) Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 15:38:03 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Commons-Law] AMTC Response to Chairperson of the inter-ministerialcommittee to consider Test Data Protection In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040406143803.64213.qmail@web8002.mail.in.yahoo.com> Sudhir, Just to clarify 39(3): 39(3) does not deal with EMR's-but apply to marketing approvals of all pharma or agrochemical products using NCE's (new chemical entities). In terms of its linkage with the cost of drugs, you're quite right in pointing to a connection with generics: If test data is protected as exclusive information, generic drug producers would not be able to use it freely while obtaining drug approvals. This data (mostly clinical) is, as you will appreciate, quite expensive to generate. I'm sorry that I'm in a little rush and unable to comment more extensively. Hopefully Anand will do so. Regards-Shamnad --- sudhir krishnaswamy wrote: > Dear Anand > > While sharing your concern on the scope and > application of Article 39(3) of > TRIPs and making an intervention before the > Inter-Ministerial Committee I > was unclear about a few details: > > 1. As I read it Art 39(3) applies only to test data > relating to those drugs > which have a Exclusive Marketing Rights. Have AIDs > drugs been granted EMRs > in India? > > 2. I am not sure how test data may strengthen or > weaken a patent claim or > for that matter affect the price of drugs. Is it > that the test data is > crucial for generic producers to produce generic > versions or is there some > other linkage? > > Thanks > Best > > Sudhir > > _________________________________________________________________ > Contact brides & grooms FREE! > http://www.shaadi.com/ptnr.php?ptnr=hmltag > Only on www.shaadi.com. Register now! > > _______________________________________________ > commons-law mailing list > commons-law at sarai.net > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Insurance Special: Be informed on the best policies, services, tools and more. Go to: http://in.insurance.yahoo.com/licspecial/index.html From cha_mathyoo at hotmail.com Tue Apr 6 23:18:17 2004 From: cha_mathyoo at hotmail.com (Mathew M. Chacko) Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 23:18:17 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] RE: Ten Sports and Positive Free Speech Rights Message-ID: hey, does anybody have a copy of the judicial order in the ten sports issue or know where i may be able to get it? Mathew >From: "ankita Singhania" >To: s.gupta at in.pwc.com, commons-law at sarai.net >Subject: [Commons-Law] RE: Ten Sports and Positive Free Speech Rights >Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 06:48:38 +0000 > >_______________________________________________ >commons-law mailing list >commons-law at sarai.net >https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law _________________________________________________________________ Post Classifieds on MSN classifieds. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/44045.asp Buy and Sell on MSN Classifieds. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040406/bbb6a049/attachment.html From simo at mahiti.org Wed Apr 7 22:17:00 2004 From: simo at mahiti.org (Simo-Pekka Aalto) Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 16:47:00 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Open Source awareness project, some updates Message-ID: <40743084.8080303@mahiti.org> Dear all. Here's some updates concerning my project in Mahiti Infotech in Bangalore. For those who are new to the subject, the project is about promoting OSS/FS in colleges around Bangalore. (And now in Goa too, thanks to Frederick Noronha for getting me in touch with the people there.) So, i've been contacting the colleges in Bangalore to offer my presentation to them. So far i have 3 confirmed dates: 12th april at PCCE college in Goa, 17th april at CMR college, and 28th april at SMV Institution of technology, two latter in Bangalore. Some other colleges have been interested but no dates confirmed yet. This is everything so far, i'll send more updates after i've held the first presentation. regards, -- Simo-Pekka Aalto Mahiti Infotech Ltd. Email: simo at mahiti.org Mobile: 98864-45428 From sunil at mahiti.org Thu Apr 8 04:33:21 2004 From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham) Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 23:03:21 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Off Topic: Updated hare & tortoise story Message-ID: <1081379001.643.142.camel@box> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=103090&cid=8780979 The article likens Linux to the proverbial tortoise, and that gets me to thinking that we should update the famous Aesop fable of the tortoise and the hare to reflect today's reality. How about this... Just as the tortoise has crossed the finish line, the hare, waking up and realizing he's lost the race as a result of his own indolence and brash overconfidence, files suit against the tortoise for infringing on his intellectual property, foremost of which is the hare's exclusive rights to using one's legs for forward movement. The tortoise, facing mounting legal bills and declining support from the other animals, nearly all of whom think the hare's claims are overly broad and invalid but are afraid of being similarly targeted by the hare's legal campaign for the use of their own legs, is forced to settle out of court, concede defeat in the race, and to pay a nominal licensing fee to continue using his own legs. The hare, and his lawyers, win the race after all. Thanks, ಸುನೀಲ್ -- 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 51150580. Mobile: +91 80 36701931 "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 annymcbeal at rediffmail.com Thu Apr 8 14:38:30 2004 From: annymcbeal at rediffmail.com (anuranjan s) Date: 8 Apr 2004 09:08:30 -0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] interesting initiative! Message-ID: <20040408090830.21418.qmail@webmail36.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040408/e14a3355/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- Hi guys! this is my first posting on this list. I am a 4th year student in NALSAR. I wanted to draw ur attention to this interesting initiative that i found called the "ipjustice": http://www.ipjustice.org/ have a look at it, seems to me like a very pragmatic approach in balancing the public and private stakes involved in granting IP in the digital world. the site has what it calls the "principles of IP Justice". it subscribes to the 'civil liberty argument' in the use of media and the impediment that IP laws are creating in the exercise of these liberties. Also contains links to more similar initiatives. enjoy Anuranjan From asimov at vsnl.com Thu Apr 8 21:33:03 2004 From: asimov at vsnl.com (Badri Natarajan) Date: Thu, 08 Apr 2004 17:03:03 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] interesting initiative! Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.1.20040408170301.02104ab0@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> At 09:08 AM 4/8/2004 +0000, you wrote: > >Hi guys! >this is my first posting on this list. I am a 4th year student in NALSAR. >I wanted to draw ur attention to this interesting initiative that i found >called the "ipjustice": http://www.ipjustice.org/ Yeah, IP Justice is doing some interesting work. It was founded quite recently by Robin Gross, who used to be a Staff Attorney at the EFF, but left to start IP Justice. They do a lot of international IP work, on IP treaties, EU law and stuff - much more than most American nonprofits. Badri From meghasekhsaria at hotmail.com Thu Apr 8 22:17:11 2004 From: meghasekhsaria at hotmail.com (Megha Sekhsaria) Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 17:47:11 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] Bappi Lahiri v. Dr. Dre Message-ID: while searching i just came across your discussion on the Addictive case. Can some1 please guide me to how I can get a copy of the case? all i seem to find is the newspaper articles. thank you Megha Sekhsaria -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040408/b2b529fa/attachment.html From amit_spc at hotmail.com Sun Apr 11 22:55:47 2004 From: amit_spc at hotmail.com (Amit Gupta) Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 17:25:47 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Dimminaco A.G.case Message-ID: Hi, I would appreciate if someone could provide me with the citation of Dimminaco A.G.v. Controller of Patents (2002, Calcutta H.C.) and more preferrably the text of the judgment. Many thanks in advance. Amit Gupta _________________________________________________________________ Stay in touch with absent friends - get MSN Messenger http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger From annymcbeal at rediffmail.com Mon Apr 12 11:23:20 2004 From: annymcbeal at rediffmail.com (anuranjan s) Date: 12 Apr 2004 05:53:20 -0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] napster like initiatives Message-ID: <20040412055320.14286.qmail@webmail25.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040412/92582e8a/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- Hi, After the Napster is declared illegal, its quite difficult to beleive (considering the nature of internet) that no one(frustrated with the Napster judgment) is still using P2P technology to share music. Could someone have any idea about such effort. More generally, I am quite interested in learning what more uses of P2P technology are been made. Any forthcoming information is important for both private and academic purpose. Thanx Anuranjan From rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com Mon Apr 12 12:06:50 2004 From: rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com (Rajlakshmi Nesargi) Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 23:36:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] case citation. Message-ID: <20040412063650.6262.qmail@web21603.mail.yahoo.com> Hi Amit, The citation for the case is Dimminaco A.G. v. Controller of Patents, Designs & Ors. (AID No. 1 of 2001, Calcutta High Court). The entire text judgement is not available on the web. Best Rajlakshmi ===== "You must be the change you wish to see in the world. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"-Mahatma Gandhi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From jace at pobox.com Mon Apr 12 20:34:25 2004 From: jace at pobox.com (Kiran Jonnalagadda) Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 20:34:25 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] napster like initiatives In-Reply-To: <20040412055320.14286.qmail@webmail25.rediffmail.com> References: <20040412055320.14286.qmail@webmail25.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: On Apr 12, 2004, at 11:23 AM, anuranjan s wrote: > After the Napster is declared illegal, its quite difficult to beleive > (considering the nature of internet) that no one(frustrated with the > Napster judgment) is still using P2P technology to share music. Could > someone have any idea about such effort. FastTrack (Kazaa), Gnutella and OpenFT are very much alive and teeming with files. There are now even meta-P2P apps [1] that connect to several networks at once. DRM technologies continue to be subverted and are now moving beyond the reach of US law (to India!) [2]. Canada's Federal (Supreme?) Court recently declared that downloading copyrighted music over P2P networks is *legal* in Canada [3]. Who says P2P is dead? [1] http://gift.sourceforge.net/clients.php [2] http://playfair.sarovar.org/ [3] http://boingboing.net/2004/03/31/canadas_riaa_cant_pr.html -- Kiran Jonnalagadda http://www.pobox.com/~jace From info at nmartproject.net Sun Apr 11 16:25:39 2004 From: info at nmartproject.net (Cinematheque at MediaCentre) Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 18:55:39 +0800 Subject: [Commons-Law] [Reader-list] [Announcements] Launch of "Slowtime?....part IV on Message-ID: <200404111055.i3BAtdMb017588@imsmq08.netvigator.com> Cinematheque at MediaCentre -->Le Musee di-visioniste" www.le-musee-divisioniste.org/mediacentre/ mediacentre at le-musee-divisioniste.org is happy to launch on Friday, 20 January 2004 part IV of its new showcase of streaming media art works entitled "Slowtime?........" [Quicktime (.mov) as an artistic medium] which is presented at the new space of "Cinema_B". --> Quicktime does not only represent a cross-plattform file format for converting and distributing (analogue/digital) video into an Internet compatible streaming format, but has a lot of different features and characteristics which predestine Quicktime to be a serious artistic medium beyond that <-- The show is launched in four parts Part IV - launch on 20 February 2004 includes following artists ----> Arlene Ducao (USA) Kevin Hamilton (UK) Marcello Mercado (Germany) Cincia Cremona (Italy) Spaceanus (USA) Mica Scalin (USA) Dana Cooley (USA) Alyssa Rothwell (USA) Ewan McDougall (UK) Agricola de Cologne (Germany) ---> Part III - launch on 19 January 2004 includes following artists ---> Chiara Passa (Italy) Adriana Sasali (Argentina) John Belucci (USA) Thierry B -------------- next part -------------- ***** NOTE: An attachment named cd writing error.ERR.scr was deleted from this message because it possibly contained a windows executable or other potentially dangerous file type. Contact root at sarai.net for more information. From mklayman at dannybutt.net Mon Apr 12 08:59:09 2004 From: mklayman at dannybutt.net (Melinda Klayman) Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 11:29:09 +0800 Subject: [Commons-Law] [Reader-list] Leonardo Sessions at CAA Message-ID: <200404120329.i3C3T9kB001614@imsmq06.netvigator.com> This week's College Art Association Annual Conference in Seattle will feature two sessions by Leonardo/ISAST: On Wednesday, February 18, 2004, 4:00-5:30pm, Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology will be holding an affiliated society panel discussion entitled: "Art, Science, and Technology: Problems and Issues Facing an Emerging Interdisciplinary Field" The panelists will be: Sheila Pinkel, Pomona College Art Julio Berm=FAdez, University of Utah Nina Czegledy=20 Roger Malina, Leonardo Chair Mark Resch, Onomy Labs On Saturday, February 21, 12:30-2:00pm, we will be holding a Leonardo/ISAST town hall meeting, with Leonardo staff and board members present to answer questions and take note of pressing issues in the community. Everyone should feel free to voice their concerns and receive feedback from the Art/Science/Technology community at this meeting. Please join us for these stimulating discussions in Seattle. Both sessions will take place at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, 800 Convention Place, in downtown Seattle. Both of these sessions are free and open to the public.=20 _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. Critiques & Collaborations To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. List archive: -------------- next part -------------- ***** NOTE: An attachment named cd writing error.ERR.scr was deleted from this message because it possibly contained a windows executable or other potentially dangerous file type. Contact root at sarai.net for more information. From shamnadbasheer at yahoo.co.in Tue Apr 13 16:23:30 2004 From: shamnadbasheer at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Shamnad=20Basheer?=) Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 11:53:30 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Commons-Law] case citation. In-Reply-To: <20040412063650.6262.qmail@web21603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040413105330.31727.qmail@web8007.mail.in.yahoo.com> Hi Amit, I did have a soft copy of this case -but cannot seem to locate it now (maybe also because it formed a core part of my dissertation last year and its the last thing I want to think about now). Will search for it and revert to you. The dissertation itself will soon be published in STLR (Stanford Tech Law Review-but I'd be happy to send you a copy if you wish to have a look at it. Regards-Shamnad --- Rajlakshmi Nesargi wrote: > Hi Amit, > > The citation for the case is Dimminaco A.G. v. > Controller of Patents, Designs & Ors. (AID No. 1 of > 2001, Calcutta High Court). > > The entire text judgement is not available on the > web. > > Best > Rajlakshmi > > ===== > "You must be the change you wish to see in the > world. First they ignore you, then they laugh at > you, then they fight you, then you win"-Mahatma > Gandhi > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th > http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html > _______________________________________________ > commons-law mailing list > commons-law at sarai.net > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner online. http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony/ From shamnadbasheer at yahoo.co.in Tue Apr 13 16:59:20 2004 From: shamnadbasheer at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Shamnad=20Basheer?=) Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 12:29:20 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Commons-Law] IP articles In-Reply-To: <20040412063650.6262.qmail@web21603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040413112920.61951.qmail@web8002.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear All, Over the next few months, Professor David Vaver, Director (OIPRC) is preparing a compilation, to be eventually published by Routledge, of the most significant journal articles of contemporary interest on intellectual property law: whether theoretical, doctrinal, historical, economic or other. He already has a preliminary collection and I am helping him add to this list. He is avoiding contributions to compilations (at the publisher's request), and inclines towards the shorter article (insofar as such still exists in law) so as to include as wide a range of high-quality writers, countries, and perspectives as possible. He will eventually choose between 70 to 100 pieces for inclusion. If you are able to spare some time, could I please request you to point me to some articles that you would consider most suitable for such a collection. In particular, given the nature of this mail-list, names of articles dealing with 'commons' issues and articles with a developing country perspective would be most appreciated. Any other ideas or suggestions would be welcome. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you very much for your time. Warm wishes-Shamnad ps: Sudhir, am a little short on articles tackling the IP-consti link up. Any suggestions?? Shamnad Basheer Associate Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre (OIPRC) University of Oxford Ph: 07765407707 ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner online. http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony/ From sudhir75 at hotmail.com Wed Apr 14 12:10:22 2004 From: sudhir75 at hotmail.com (Sudhir) Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 12:10:22 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] On EMRs and Drugs Message-ID: <000201c421eb$5cb985f0$6600a8c0@Sudhir> Dear all Sorry for cross posting to those on the AMTC list - an interesting battle on the recent Patent Amendments. Is there anyone on this list involved in the litigation who can give us more information?? Best Sudhir Natco Pharma may move SC on marketing rights for cancer drug Business Line, Our Bureau Hyderabad , April 8 AGGRIEVED over the move of the Delhi High Court on Tuesday of disposing off the case on the issue of exclusive marketing rights (EMR), Natco Pharma Ltd (NPL) said it "would be examining various options available to it under the circumstances". One of the options available before the company is to go on appeal before the Supreme Court, a company source said. Challenging the decision of the Controller-General of Patents and Trademarks of India to grant EMR in favour of Novartis India for its anti-cancer drug in the country, Natco had earlier filed a case in the Delhi High Court. Novartis India is the first company to get EMR for a drug in the country under the product patent regime. The Indian subsidiary of the multinational company was given the EMR to its drug - Glivec - for five years or until a product patent supersedes the rights in the country. Natco had challenged the constitutional validity of the provisions of the Indian Patent Act 2002, which provide for grant of EMR. "After hearing both the parties, the High Court, without going into the merits of the case, was of the opinion that it could not entertain the writ petition on the point of jurisdiction," Natco Pharma said in a press release here on Wednesday. Natco Pharma, which has been focussing its efforts on launching highly affordable anti-cancer drugs in the country, launched early last year Imatinib Mesylate, a drug for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia. Natco made the medicine, under the brand `Veenat', available at one-tenth of the cost of Novartis' Glivec. According to the Natco Chief Operating Officer, Mr Rajeev Nannapaneni, the company's therapy costs $2,700 per annum, against Novartis' $27,000 per annum. Natco has been arguing that under the provisions of the Indian Patent Act and Rules, exclusive rights can be granted only in respect of patents and applications filed in a convention country after January 1, 1995. Natco has been urging the Government to review the policy on EMR at least in respect of non-lifestyle, critical and life-saving medicines. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040414/1a2be70c/attachment.html From simo at mahiti.org Wed Apr 14 15:00:45 2004 From: simo at mahiti.org (simo at mahiti.org) Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 05:30:45 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] OSS/FS awareness project Message-ID: <157240-22004431493045167@M2W040.mail2web.com> Greetings from Bangalore! I held the first of my presentations in Goa in monday, place was Padre Conceicao College. There was nice amount of crowd, something like 30 people. After the presentation the students asked few questions, and after all this i told the audience what it's like to study in Finland. For many, this actually seemed to be the most interesting part so i'll probably talk about this subject in other places too in the case my time isn't full. Next i'm going to CMR institute of technology, in saturday 17th, here in Bangalore. regards, -- Simo-Pekka Aalto Mahiti Infotech Ltd. Bangalore, India simo at mahiti.org -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From jace at pobox.com Wed Apr 14 16:57:24 2004 From: jace at pobox.com (Kiran Jonnalagadda) Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 16:57:24 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Fwd: [silk] File sharing does not hurt record sales? Message-ID: From another mailing list. Begin forwarded message: > From: "Divya" > Date: April 14, 2004 1:32:51 PM GMT+05:30 > To: > Subject: [silk] File sharing does not hurt record sales? > Reply-To: silklist at lists.vipul.net > > A Heretical View of File Sharing > By JOHN SCHWARTZ > Source: > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/technology/05music.html?hp > (Registration Required) Published: April 5, 2004 > > > > The music industry says it repeatedly, with passion and conviction: > downloading hurts sales. > > That statement is at the heart of the war on file sharing, both of > music and > movies, and underpins lawsuits against thousands of music fans, as > well as > legislation approved last week by a House Judiciary subcommittee that > would > create federal penalties for using what is known as peer-to-peer > technology > to download copyrighted works. It is also part of the reason that the > Justice Department introduced an intellectual-property task force last > week > that plans to step up criminal prosecutions of copyright infringers. > > But what if the industry is wrong, and file sharing is not hurting > record > sales? > > It might seem counterintuitive, but that is the conclusion reached by > two > economists who released a draft last week of the first study that > makes a > rigorous economic comparison of directly observed activity on > file-sharing > networks and music buying. > > "Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically > indistinguishable > from zero, despite rather precise estimates," write its authors, Felix > Oberholzer-Gee of the Harvard Business School and Koleman S. Strumpf > of the > University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. > > The industry has reacted with the kind of flustered consternation that > the > White House might display if Richard A. Clarke showed up at a Rose > Garden > tea party. Last week, the Recording Industry Association of America > sent out > three versions of a six-page response to the study. > > The problem with the industry view, Professors Oberholzer-Gee and > Strumpf > say, is that it is not supported by solid evidence. Previous studies > have > failed because they tend to depend on surveys, and the authors contend > that > surveys of illegal activity are not trustworthy. "Those who agree to > have > their Internet behavior discussed or monitored are unlikely to be > representative of all Internet users," the authors wrote. > > Instead, they analyzed the direct data of music downloaders over a > 17-week > period in the fall of 2002, and compared that activity with actual > music > purchases during that time. Using complex mathematical formulas, they > determined that spikes in downloading had almost no discernible effect > on > sales. Even under their worst-case example, "it would take 5,000 > downloads > to reduce the sales of an album by one copy," they wrote. "After > annualizing, this would imply a yearly sales loss of two million > albums, > which is virtually rounding error" given that 803 million records were > sold > in 2002. Sales dropped by 139 million albums from 2000 to 2002. > > "While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely > individuals > who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file > sharing," > the professors wrote. > > In an interview, Professor Oberholzer-Gee said that previous research > assumed that every download could be thought of as a lost sale. In > fact, he > said, most downloaders were drawn to free music and were unlikely to > spend > $18 on a CD. > > "Say I offer you a free flight to Florida," he asks. "How likely is it > that > you will go to Florida? It is very likely, because the price is free." > If > there were no free ticket, that trip to Florida would be much less > likely, > he said. Similarly, free music might draw all kinds of people, but "it > doesn't mean that these people would buy CD's at $18," he said. > > The most popular albums bought are also the most popular downloads, so > the > researchers looked for anomalous rises in downloading activity that > they > might compare to sales activity. They found one such spike, Professor > Oberholzer-Gee said, during a German school holiday that occurred > during the > time they studied. Germany is second to the United States in making > files > available for downloading, supplying about 15 percent of online music > files, > he said. During the vacation, students who were home with time on their > hands flooded the Internet with new files, which in turn spurred new > downloading activity. The researchers then looked for any possible > impact in > the subsequent weeks on sales of CD's. > > > > > Professor Oberholzer said that he had expected to find that downloading > resulted in some harm to the industry, and was startled when he first > ran > the numbers in the spring of 2003. "I called Koleman and said, > 'Something is > not quite right - there seems to be no effect between file sharing and > sales.' " > > Amy Weiss, an industry spokeswoman, expressed incredulity at what she > deemed > an "incomprehensible" study, and she ridiculed the notion that a > relatively > small sample of downloads could shed light on the universe of activity. > > The industry response, titled "Downloading Hurts Sales," concludes: > "If file > sharing has no negative impact on the purchasing patterns of the top > selling > records, how do you account for the fact that, according to SoundScan, > the > decrease of Top 10 selling albums in each of the last four years is: > 2000, > 60 million units; 2001, 40 million units; 2002, 34 million units; > 2003, 33 > million units?" > > Critics of the industry's stance have long suggested that other factors > might be contributing to the drop in sales, including a slow economy, > fewer > new releases and a consolidation of radio networks that has resulted > in less > variety on the airwaves. Some market experts have also suggested that > record > sales in the 1990's might have been abnormally high as people bought > CD's to > replace their vinyl record collections. > > "The single-bullet theory employed by the R.I.A.A. has always been > considered by anyone with even a modicum of economic knowledge to be > pretty > ambitious as spin," said Joe Fleischer, the head of sales and > marketing for > BigChampagne, a company that tracks music downloads and is used by some > record companies to measure the popularity of songs for marketing > purposes. > > The industry response stresses that the new study has not gone through > the > process of peer review. But the response cites refuting statistics and > analysis, much of it prepared by market research consultants, that > also have > not gone through peer review. > > One consultant, Russ Crupnick, vice president of the NPD Group, called > the > report "absolutely astounding." Asked to explain how the professors' > analysis might be mistaken, he said he was still trying to understand > the > complex document: "I am not the level of mathematician that the > professors > purport to be." > > Stan Liebowitz of the University of Texas at Dallas, author of an essay > cited by the industry, said the use of a German holiday to judge > American > behavior was strained. Professor Liebowitz argued in a paper in 2002 > that > file sharing did not affect music sales, but said he had since changed > his > mind. > > The Liebowitz essay appeared in an economics journal edited by Gary D. > Libecap, a professor of economics at the University of Arizona, who > said > that his publication was not peer reviewed, though the articles in it > were > often based on peer-reviewed work. Professor Libecap said he attended a > presentation by Professor Strumpf last week, and said the file-sharing > study > "looks really good to me." > > "This was really careful, empirical work," Professor Libecap said. > > The author of another report recommended by the industry said that the > two > sets of data used by the researchers should not be compared. "They > can't get > to that using the two sets of data they are using - they aren't > tracking > individual behavior," said Jayne Charneski, formerly of Edison Media > Research, who prepared a report last June that she said showed that 7 > percent of the marketplace consists of people who download music and > do not > buy it. That number is far lower than the authors of the new study > estimated. "There's a lot of research out there that's conducted with > an > agenda in mind," said Ms. Charneski, now the head of research for the > record > label EMI. > > > > > -- Kiran Jonnalagadda http://www.pobox.com/~jace From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 14 20:11:52 2004 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 07:41:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] Fwd: [silk] File sharing does not hurt record sales? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040414144152.36052.qmail@web13603.mail.yahoo.com> hi all on the file sharing and business statistics, whie it is useful once in a while to state statistics that make an argument that file sharing, piracy etc do not necessariy hurt record sales ( see for instance also on software, carlos Osorio's work), I am wondering isf that is a line that we should pursue at all. Because then it becomes a matyter of counter factuals, what if I do proive that file sharing does affect record sales, does that invalidate or render illegal file sharing? The alrger issue for me would be whether i need to necessarily respond to the percieved crisis of lessening of music sales, and if it is a crisis who is it a crisis for? Lawrence __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 14 20:47:57 2004 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 08:17:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] free software legislation Message-ID: <20040414151757.60180.qmail@web13607.mail.yahoo.com> hi all hadnt seen this previously, interestinhg...available at http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7293 Lawrence DRAFT FREE SOFTWARE ACT Recitals: (i) "Free software" for the purposes of this Act is not a technical definition. Instead, it is software licensed under free software licenses which assures users, copiers, modifiers, distributors and any other beneficiaries of free software of certain freedoms. The objective of this Act is to clarify and strengthen the rights of the aforementioned which are already enjoyed in practice. (ii) Any user, copier, modifier, distributor or any other beneficiary of free software has standing to sue for any violation of this Act. Sections: 1. Free software guarantees the following freedoms to its users, copiers, modifiers, distributors and any other beneficiaries of free software: (a) The right to access the source code of any free software program for any reason. (b) The right to run the program for any reason. (c) The right to copy the program for any reason. (d) The right to modify the program for any reason. (e) The right to distribute the program for any reason. (f) Authors' rights: i. The author of any free software program retains the right of attribution to his/her work. ii. Any modifier must acknowledge the authorship of the original version, along with the authorship of the modification. iii. Authorship should always be correctly attributed. (g) All users, copiers, modifiers, distributors and any beneficiaries of free software have the right to know about and be informed about the rights listed in section 1 of this Act. 2. Distributors of free software, whether in its original, copied or modified form, when distributing the program, may not restrict any of the rights in section 1. 3. A charge may be made for the program, providing that all rights in section 1 are preserved. 4. Exemptions from liability: (a) When any free software programmer, while engaged in free software development, inadvertently violates a proprietary software license, s/he will be exempt from any liability whatsoever. (b) When any free software programmer, while engaged in free software development, inadvertently violates a software copyright, s/he will be exempt from any liability whatsoever. (c) There should be no warranties for free software, unless such a warranty has been requested by the purchaser, agreed to by the vendor and paid for appropriately. 5. Users, copiers, modifiers, distributors and any other beneficiaries of free software are bound by the contractual conditions of any license or licenses which apply to the program or programs they use. 6. Where a program has been developed in more than one jurisdiction, each with different copyright requirements, the provisions of this Act will apply. 7. Sanctions: Any violation of this Act will result in an obligation on the part of those responsible or of third parties to give access to the source code of any modified program based on free software. Further sanctions may be imposed by the courts. 8. Definitions: The Program: The "program" in this Act means the program, copies of the program, modified versions of the program and copies of modified versions of the program and source code of the same. Use: Run: Copy: Modify: Distribute: User: Copier: Modifier: Distributor: Beneficiary of free software: Free software programmer: __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From sudhir75 at hotmail.com Thu Apr 15 12:04:41 2004 From: sudhir75 at hotmail.com (Sudhir) Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 12:04:41 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] FW: [Reader-list] Second Posting on Understanding the Patenting ofTraditional Knowledge. Message-ID: <000b01c422b3$bb8ee110$4400a8c0@Sudhir> -----Original Message----- From: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net] On Behalf Of Aarathi Chellappa Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 11:21 PM To: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: [Reader-list] Second Posting on Understanding the Patenting ofTraditional Knowledge. Dear All, In this posting, I will be discussing what would most probably form the first chapter of the final report. Central to the issue of understanding the patenting of traditional knowledge is the definition of what would constitute traditional knowledge and why it should be protected. The World Intellectual Property Organisation defines traditional knowledge as a subset of heritage, comprising of "tradition-based literary, artistic or scientific works; performances; inventions; scientific discoveries; designs; marks; names and symbols; undisclosed information; and, all other tradition-based innovations and creations resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields.1" 'Tradition-based' refers to "knowledge systems, creations, innovations and cultural expressions that have generally been transmitted from generation to generation, are generally regarded as pertaining to a particular people or its territory have generally been developed in a non-systematic way, and are constantly evolving in response to a changing environment.2" This definition deals with traditional knowledge in terms of intellectual property. It also emphasises the requirements that traditional knowledge be transmitted through generations and pertain to a particular people or territory. It makes a presumption however, as to the development of the knowledge, in that it is non-systematic. This may be refuted with references to instances like Ayurveda, where treatises have been written documenting the properties of various herbs, giving rise to the possibility of a system of study. On occasion, traditional knowledge or indigenous knowledge is linked to indigenous people. Stephen Brush refers to two definitions of indigenous knowledge3(often used interchangeably with traditional knowledge). Broadly, "indigenous knowledge is the systematic information that remains in the informal sector, usually unwritten and preserved in oral tradition rather than texts.4 A more narrow definition "refers to the knowledge systems of indigenous people and minority cultures5". He uses the term 'indigenous people' in defining people that were the subjects of colonisers6. Douglas Sanders7 also defines traditional knowledge as "knowledge possessed by indigenous people, in one ore more societies and in one or more forms, including but not limited to art, dance and music, medicines and folk remedies, folk culture, biodiversity, knowledge and protection of plant varieties, handicrafts, designs, literature". The International Labour Organisation defines indigenous people as people in independent countries who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country, or a geographical region to which the country belongs, at the time of conquest or colonisation or the establishment of present sate boundaries and who, irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions8. Dr. George Mugabe points out that the ILO definition "carries four vital factors of time, geographical space, resilience, and territorial occupation by outside populations to be considered in any discussion of indigenous peoples and knowledge.9" This also emphasises the geographical and time based dimensions of traditional or indigenous knowledge. The broad definitions of traditional knowledge discussed above, would include all expressions of traditional knowledge, such as art, music, dance, writing etc. and also ethnobiological knowledge of the holders of such knowledge. This ethnobiological knowledge is also referred to as traditional ecological knowledge and has been defined by Johnson10 as "a body of knowledge built by a group of people through generations living in close contact with nature. It includes a system of classification, a set of empirical observations about the local environment, and a system of self management that governs resource use." Traditional ecological knowledge is the form of traditional knowledge of importance to my study of the patenting of traditional knowledge. Therefore, the definition provided above is the one I will be adopting. While the definition provided by Johnson does not refer to indigenous people, he reiterates the requirements that traditional knowledge be passed on from generation to generation and it be developed in close contact with nature, i.e. have specific geographical linkages. It must be noted that the 'traditional' aspect of traditional knowledge relates to the way it is acquired and used and not to its antiquity11. So, broadly, traditional knowledge is a body of knowledge augmented by each generation of the holders this knowledge. This begs the question, how is this knowledge held? Dr. N. S. Gopalakrishnan12 classifies traditional knowledge into four categories according to its level of prevalence: 1. "Information commonly known to the society with or without documentation and is in constant use by the people. E.g. the common use of neem, tulasi, turmeric etc. 2. Information that is well documented and is available to the public for examination and use. E.g. the ayurvedic texts, information in the palm leaves etc. 3. Information that is not documented or commonly known but known only to small groups of people and not revealed to others outside the group e.g. the tribal knowledge 4. Information known only to individuals or members of the families and none else. E.g. the information used by the village medical practitioners for treatment.13" This classification according to the manner in which traditional knowledge is held also emphasises the precepts that traditional knowledge is augmented by generations and that it has definite geographical linkages. Further, this classification that traditional ecological knowledge may be held be a vast number of individuals, be documented, by communities or by a special group of individuals. Another preliminary issue that will be dealt with is why traditional knowledge should be protected. The single most important reason why traditional knowledge deserves protection is because it is key to the livelihoods of the poor14. Traditional ecological knowledge provides local communities with knowledge of what plants are edible and the medicinal properties the plants in their neighbourhood. "Two-thirds of India's health care needs are met by traditional systems of medicine"15. In addition to having a direct impact on the lives of several local communities, traditional knowledge is gaining importance now because of its pharmaceutical relevance. Another reason to protect traditional ecological knowledge is to preserve genetic resources for future research and development16. In recent past it has come to light that several modern drugs owe their origin to traditional ecological knowledge17. Therefore, another reason being agitated to protect traditional ecological knowledge is unjust enrichment from the appropriation of traditional knowledge18. A third reason is that indigenous people preserve the biological diversity of their environments and by protecting traditional knowledge, that biological diversity will be protected19. ___________ 1. WIPO. Intellectual property needs and expectations of traditional knowledge holders. Report on fact -finding missions on intellectual property and traditional knowledge (1998- 1999) (Geneva: WIPO, 2001) available at http://www.wipo.int/globalissues/tk/report/final/pdf/part1.pdf. 2. ibid. 3. Stephen Brush, "Whose Knowledge, Whose Genes, Whose Rights?" in Brush and Stabinsky (Eds.) Valuing Local Knowledge: Indigenous Peoples and Intellectual Property Rights, Island Press, Covelo, 1996, p. 4. 4. ibid. 5. ibid. 6. id. p. 5. 7. Douglas E. Sanders, "Indigenous Peoples: Issues of Definition," (1996) available at http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/aboriginalplanet/resource/canada/documents/ sanders-en.asp. 8. Article 1, International Labour Organization Convention Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, June 1989 (referred to as Convention 169) quoted in Dr. George Mugabe, "Intellectual Property Protection and Traditional Knowledge: An Exploration in International Policy Discourse" available online at http://www.wipo.int/tk/en/activities/1998/humanrights/papers/word/mugabe doc 9. Dr. George Mugabe, "Intellectual Property Protection and Traditional Knowledge: An Exploration in International Policy Discourse" available online at http://www.wipo.int/tk/en/activities/1998/humanrights/papers/word/mugabe doc 10. M. Johnson, "Research on Traditional Environmental Knowledge: Its Development and Its Role" in M. Johnson (Ed.) Lore: Capturing Traditional Environmental Knowledge, IDRC, Ottawa, 1992, p. 4, quoted in Graham Dutfield, "Protecting and Revitalising Traditional Knowledge", Michael Blakeney (Ed.) Intellectual Property Aspects of Ethnobiology, Sweet and Maxwell, London, 1999, p. 104 11. Four Directions Council, Forests, Indigenous Peoples and Biodiversity: Contributions of the Four Directions Council, Submission to the Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity, 1996, quoted in Graham Dutfield, "Protecting and Revitalising Traditional Knowledge", Michael Blakeney (Ed.) Intellectual Property Aspects of Ethnobiology, Sweet and Maxwell, London, 1999, p. 105. 12. Dr. N. S. Gopalakrishnan, "Impact of Patent System on Traditional Knowledge" [1998] CULR 219. 13. id. 221. 14. Rosemary Coombe, Sixth Annual Tribal Sovereignty Symposium: The Recognition Of Indigenous Peoples' And Community Traditional Knowledge In International Law, 14 St. Thomas L. Rev. 275, 278. 15. Dr. Vandana Shiva. et. al. The Enclosure and Recovery of the Commons: Biodiversity, Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, New Delhi, 1997, p. 20. 16. Rosemary Coombe, supra. n. 13. p. 279. 17. For several instances of appropriation of traditional knowledge to develop proprietary pharmaceuticals, see Naomi Roht-Arriaza, "OF Seeds and Shamans: The Appropriation of the Scientific and Technical Knowledge of Indigenous and Local Communities," 17, Mich. J. Int'l L. 919 (1996) 18. Rosemary Coombe, supra. n. 13. p. 281. 19. id. p. 280. ________________ Comments are welcome. Especially on how to overcome the fear of committing ideas to paper. I have been planning this post for quite a while and have known exactly what I wanted to say in it for a week. For some reason, I just could not get myself to write it all down. On the advice of the SARAI mentors, I'm planning to break the entire report down into a series of papers, each of about 2000-2500 words, so that the final result is not overwhelming. I hope that tackling the next paper will be easier and would appreciate any tips. Thanks, Aarathi. ___________________________________________________________ WIN FREE WORLDWIDE FLIGHTS - nominate a cafe in the Yahoo! Mail Internet Cafe Awards www.yahoo.co.uk/internetcafes _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. Critiques & Collaborations To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. List archive: From sudhir75 at hotmail.com Thu Apr 15 17:30:18 2004 From: sudhir75 at hotmail.com (Sudhir) Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 17:30:18 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Fwd: [silk] File sharing does not hurt record sales? In-Reply-To: <20040414144152.36052.qmail@web13603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <002201c422e1$38defba0$4400a8c0@Sudhir> Agree with Lawrence on this - focus on record company sales distracts our attention from the central objectives of legal regime that regulates the creation and distribution of content. How do we devise regimes that promote cultural creation while ensuring low access barriers for the consuming public. Moreover we should not assume that, like with copyright law, incentives for creation and the business of distribution should be regulated by the same regime. The moment we address both these concerns independently interesting possibilities open up! Best Sudhir -----Original Message----- From: commons-law-bounces at sarai.net [mailto:commons-law-bounces at sarai.net] On Behalf Of Lawrence Liang Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 8:12 PM To: commons-law at sarai.net Subject: Re: [Commons-Law] Fwd: [silk] File sharing does not hurt record sales? hi all on the file sharing and business statistics, whie it is useful once in a while to state statistics that make an argument that file sharing, piracy etc do not necessariy hurt record sales ( see for instance also on software, carlos Osorio's work), I am wondering isf that is a line that we should pursue at all. Because then it becomes a matyter of counter factuals, what if I do proive that file sharing does affect record sales, does that invalidate or render illegal file sharing? The alrger issue for me would be whether i need to necessarily respond to the percieved crisis of lessening of music sales, and if it is a crisis who is it a crisis for? Lawrence __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html _______________________________________________ commons-law mailing list commons-law at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law From saif42 at hotmail.com Thu Apr 15 18:21:12 2004 From: saif42 at hotmail.com (Dev Gangjee) Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 13:51:12 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] Fwd: [silk] File sharing does not hurt record sales? References: <002201c422e1$38defba0$4400a8c0@Sudhir> Message-ID: Just a quick response to this thread... Increasingly an 'investment' rationale is taking over from 'protecting - thus incentivizing - creativity' as the basis of copyright. Sudhir's pointed out the interests at stake in protecting the business of distribution as distinct from encouraging the creation of new works. The effects of this encroachment are most visible in the sui generis database rights regime (in effect in the EU and being debated elsewhere) as well as in neighbouring rights to copyright such as performers rights and broadcaster's rights. (We're currently working on an intervention paper critiquing the WIPO draft treaty on broadcasting law that not only strengthens existing rights but hikes up the period of protection from 20 to 50 years for no apparent reason). The problem with any investment rationale is 'bootstrapping' or circular logic. If you'll forgive the oversimplification :- 1. Why protect investment through the law? 2. Because it generates value. 3. Why does it generate value? 4. Because its protected by law. There appears to be a deliberate attempt to confuse the two issues of (a) incentivizing creativity with (b) just protecting something that is valuable through a strong proprietary regime with 'investment' arguments resorting to creator/'starving artists' rhetoric. Even recent well intentioned attempts to untangle file-sharing issues (e.g. Reducing Digital Copyright Infringement Without Restricting Innovation at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=525662) don't adeqautely untangle this. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sudhir" To: "'Lawrence Liang'" ; Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 1:00 PM Subject: RE: [Commons-Law] Fwd: [silk] File sharing does not hurt record sales? > > Agree with Lawrence on this - focus on record company sales distracts > our attention from the central objectives of legal regime that regulates > the creation and distribution of content. How do we devise regimes that > promote cultural creation while ensuring low access barriers for the > consuming public. Moreover we should not assume that, like with > copyright law, incentives for creation and the business of distribution > should be regulated by the same regime. The moment we address both these > concerns independently interesting possibilities open up! > > Best > Sudhir > > -----Original Message----- > From: commons-law-bounces at sarai.net > [mailto:commons-law-bounces at sarai.net] On Behalf Of Lawrence Liang > Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 8:12 PM > To: commons-law at sarai.net > Subject: Re: [Commons-Law] Fwd: [silk] File sharing does not hurt record > sales? > > hi all > > on the file sharing and business statistics, whie it > is useful once in a while to state statistics that > make an argument that file sharing, piracy etc do not > necessariy hurt record sales ( see for instance also > on software, carlos Osorio's work), I am wondering isf > that is a line that we should pursue at all. Because > then it becomes a matyter of counter factuals, what if > I do proive that file sharing does affect record > sales, does that invalidate or render illegal file > sharing? > > The alrger issue for me would be whether i need to > necessarily respond to the percieved crisis of > lessening of music sales, and if it is a crisis who > is it a crisis for? > > Lawrence > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th > http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html > _______________________________________________ > commons-law mailing list > commons-law at sarai.net > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law > _______________________________________________ > commons-law mailing list > commons-law at sarai.net > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law > From meyarivan at sarai.net Sat Apr 17 10:42:33 2004 From: meyarivan at sarai.net (meyarivan at sarai.net) Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 10:42:33 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Here they come....Will we make it ? Message-ID: <20040417051233.GB3076@mail.sarai.net> -- >From http://sarovar.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=474 -- Posted By: Sarovar.org Admin Date: 2004-04-16 17:18 Summary: "PlayFair" has been taken down. This is to announce that the project "PlayFair" has been taken down from Sarovar.org upon receiving a legal notice this morning from Apple's attorneys. We are awaiting to hear from our attorneys. Here is the notice we received in its full form: E-mail : info at linuxense.com RSK/NSN/skk/A45 - 547 Thursday, April 15, 2004 Linuxense Information Systems Lalita Mandir 16/1623, Jagathy Thycaud P. O. TRIVANDRUM - 695014 [ Fax # 0471 233 3186 ] Attn: Mr. C. V. Radhakrishnan President Dear Sirs, Re: Circumvention Computer Program "PlayFair" & Infringement of Copyright in ITunes of Apple Computer Inc. We write on behalf of our clients, Apple Computer Inc, a corporation organised and existing under the laws of the State of California, USA, of 1 Infinite Loop MS:3TM, Cupertino, California - 95014, U.S.A. As you are undoubtedly aware, our clients own and manage one of the most comprehensive and well-known online music services in the world under the brand "iTunes". The iTunes music service contains hundreds of thousands of songs from major music labels, plus over 100,000 new tracks from independent artists and record labels. Our clients invest a substantial amount of resources to obtain legitimate rights in these works and make them available through their iTunes Music Service. The songs are formatted in the AAC:MPEG4 audio format ("AAC"), which is one of the foremost audio codecs revolutionising the field of online music today. These AAC files sold over the iTunes Service are encrypted by our clients, which allows the user to burn songs on to an unlimited number of CDs, listen to the songs on an unlimited number of our clients' music players called iPods and play songs on up to three computers. In short, our clients have one of the most generous personal use rights attached to services of this kind, thus enjoying the patronage of millions of users worldwide. It was recently brought to our clients' attention that a program called "PlayFair" had been developed, which decoded our clients' protected AAC files, converting them to unencrypted files allowing them to be played and distributed in an unrestricted manner. This is contrary to our clients' terms and conditions governing availability of the service and is causing them enormous potential loss of revenue and reputation. Not only that, the PlayFair program is against the express provisions of our Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Copyright Act, 1957 and you are equally liable as accessories, being the means through which the offending program is available for download at the Sarovar site at the following URL: http://sarovar.org/projects/playfair/. This program was previously hosted on a website called "SourceForge". When our clients addressed a cease and desist letter to SourceForge, the website removed the program immediately from its server, in recognition of the fact that PlayFair compromised the intellectual property rights of our clients. Following the removal of PlayFair from the SourceForge's server, it has moved to Sarovar.org, which is run, owned and managed by you. You will agree that no site hosting open source / free projects can support programs of this sort, which are in contravention of the law and undermine the intellectual property rights of the owners. It may be mentioned that you are completely aware of the background of the matter inasmuch as the fact that PlayFair has moved from SourceForge to your website has been clearly mentioned in the "latest news" column of your Sarovar.org homepage. It is, therefore, not understandable as to how you have knowingly allowed the illegal PlayFair program to be hosted on your website. In the aforesaid circumstances, you are hereby called upon to: 1. immediately remove the program called "PlayFair", all links and/or references thereto from all websites and servers under your control; and 2. undertake that you will not host the program "PlayFair" on your website or link to the location of the program "PlayFair" on your website, as well as you will not use or cause or allow others to use "PlayFair" through your website in future. Since you have styled yourself after "SourceForge", our clients expect that you will do likewise and remove the PlayFair program from your servers as well. Please confirm your compliance of the above requisitions within 24 hours from receipt of this notice, failing which our clients would be forced to consider the legal options available to them. Yours faithfully, [ Nitin Sen ] Advocate From simo at mahiti.org Sat Apr 17 19:53:44 2004 From: simo at mahiti.org (Simo-Pekka Aalto) Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 15:23:44 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] OSS/FS awareness project In-Reply-To: <157240-22004431493045167@M2W040.mail2web.com> References: <157240-22004431493045167@M2W040.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <40813DF0.4080406@mahiti.org> Hello everyone! Today, 17th april, I visited the CMR institute of technology in Bangalore. I held the presentation to audience of about 40 students and few members of the faculty. After the presentation the students asked few questions, like where should they start if they wanted to develope software in Linux environment instead of Windows, what kind of projects are undergoing and how to participate in them and how it is possible for programmer actually make living if he/she publishes the programs as OSS/FS. After discussion of OSS/FS i talked about studying in Finland and what kind of possibilities there are for foreign students. Some of the students were quite interested about this possibility and i promised to provide more information about it. All in all the event was great and there was quite a lot of questions and discussion afterwards although i've heard that it's sometimes hard to get feedback from Indian audience :) (not a new thing to me though, it's just the same way in Finland). And adding to last posting, in PCC in Goa the questions varied from the hardware driver support in Linux to differencies between Open Source and Free Software. regards, Simo From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 18 13:22:00 2004 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 00:52:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] cause you got to have faith Message-ID: <20040418075200.71148.qmail@web13605.mail.yahoo.com> EORGE MICHAEL TO QUIT MUSIC BUSINESS Gay pop singer George Michael, 40, says he has enough money and doesn't want to put up with record companies any more, so he'll give away his new music online in the future. Downloaders will be welcome to make a donation, which Michael will route to charity, he told BBC Radio 1 on March 10. "I'll hopefully be a happier man, giving my music and also doing something really positive with my music if people are generous enough to donate to the site," he said. "I'll remove myself from all that negativity. "I'm sure it's unprecedented," Michael said. "It's definitely unprecedented for someone who still sells records. I've been very well remunerated for my talents over the years, so I really don't need the public's money." __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25� http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash From sunil at mahiti.org Mon Apr 19 08:47:39 2004 From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham) Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 03:17:39 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] PlayFair: Apple's cease and desist letter to Sarovar [Indian Source Forge] Message-ID: <1082344659.617.10.camel@box> Dear Friends, Interesting how a circumvention project tries to avoid legal action by shifting geographic location. What if the project shifts onto the Peer to peer networks? Thanks, Sunil http://sarovar.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=474 Posted By: Sarovar.org Admin Date: 2004-04-16 17:18 Summary: "PlayFair" has been taken down. This is to announce that the project "PlayFair" has been taken down from Sarovar.org upon receiving a legal notice this morning from Apple's attorneys. We are awaiting to hear from our attorneys. Here is the notice we received in its full form: E-mail : info at linuxense.com RSK/NSN/skk/A45 - 547 Thursday, April 15, 2004 Linuxense Information Systems Lalita Mandir 16/1623, Jagathy Thycaud P. O. TRIVANDRUM - 695014 [ Fax # 0471 233 3186 ] Attn: Mr. C. V. Radhakrishnan President Dear Sirs, Re: Circumvention Computer Program "PlayFair" & Infringement of Copyright in ITunes of Apple Computer Inc. We write on behalf of our clients, Apple Computer Inc, a corporation organised and existing under the laws of the State of California, USA, of 1 Infinite Loop MS:3TM, Cupertino, California - 95014, U.S.A. As you are undoubtedly aware, our clients own and manage one of the most comprehensive and well-known online music services in the world under the brand "iTunes". The iTunes music service contains hundreds of thousands of songs from major music labels, plus over 100,000 new tracks from independent artists and record labels. Our clients invest a substantial amount of resources to obtain legitimate rights in these works and make them available through their iTunes Music Service. The songs are formatted in the AAC:MPEG4 audio format ("AAC"), which is one of the foremost audio codecs revolutionising the field of online music today. These AAC files sold over the iTunes Service are encrypted by our clients, which allows the user to burn songs on to an unlimited number of CDs, listen to the songs on an unlimited number of our clients' music players called iPods and play songs on up to three computers. In short, our clients have one of the most generous personal use rights attached to services of this kind, thus enjoying the patronage of millions of users worldwide. It was recently brought to our clients' attention that a program called "PlayFair" had been developed, which decoded our clients' protected AAC files, converting them to unencrypted files allowing them to be played and distributed in an unrestricted manner. This is contrary to our clients' terms and conditions governing availability of the service and is causing them enormous potential loss of revenue and reputation. Not only that, the PlayFair program is against the express provisions of our Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Copyright Act, 1957 and you are equally liable as accessories, being the means through which the offending program is available for download at the Sarovar site at the following URL: http://sarovar.org/projects/playfair/. This program was previously hosted on a website called "SourceForge". When our clients addressed a cease and desist letter to SourceForge, the website removed the program immediately from its server, in recognition of the fact that PlayFair compromised the intellectual property rights of our clients. Following the removal of PlayFair from the SourceForge's server, it has moved to Sarovar.org, which is run, owned and managed by you. You will agree that no site hosting open source / free projects can support programs of this sort, which are in contravention of the law and undermine the intellectual property rights of the owners. It may be mentioned that you are completely aware of the background of the matter inasmuch as the fact that PlayFair has moved from SourceForge to your website has been clearly mentioned in the "latest news" column of your Sarovar.org homepage. It is, therefore, not understandable as to how you have knowingly allowed the illegal PlayFair program to be hosted on your website. In the aforesaid circumstances, you are hereby called upon to: 1. immediately remove the program called "PlayFair", all links and/or references thereto from all websites and servers under your control; and 2. undertake that you will not host the program "PlayFair" on your website or link to the location of the program "PlayFair" on your website, as well as you will not use or cause or allow others to use "PlayFair" through your website in future. Since you have styled yourself after "SourceForge", our clients expect that you will do likewise and remove the PlayFair program from your servers as well. Please confirm your compliance of the above requisitions within 24 hours from receipt of this notice, failing which our clients would be forced to consider the legal options available to them. Yours faithfully, [ Nitin Sen ] Advocate Thanks, ಸುನೀಲ್ -- 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 51150580. Mobile: +91 80 36701931 "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 asimov at vsnl.com Tue Apr 20 01:05:24 2004 From: asimov at vsnl.com (Badri Natarajan) Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 20:35:24 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] PlayFair: Apple's cease and desist letter to Sarovar [Indian Source Forge] In-Reply-To: <1082344659.617.10.camel@box> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.1.20040419203229.02412c70@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> At 03:17 AM 4/19/2004 +0000, you wrote: >Dear Friends, > >Interesting how a circumvention project tries to avoid legal action by >shifting geographic location. What if the project shifts onto the Peer >to peer networks? Then, I suppose they employ RIAA tactics and issue subpoenas to get ISPs to reveal the names of their users so they can be approached directly. That might be rather hard to achieve outside the US, but then again, it may be easier to just convince an ISP to hand over the names of its customers voluntarily outside the US... What I don't understand is what "express provisions of law" Sarovar is contravening by hosting Play Fair. The Indian lawyer claims there are some provisions in the IT Act and the Copyright Act, but Indian law has no equivalent of the US DMCA's anti-circumvention provision, so I wonder exactly what he is talking about... Badri From jace at pobox.com Tue Apr 20 09:29:27 2004 From: jace at pobox.com (Kiran Jonnalagadda) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 09:29:27 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] PlayFair: Apple's cease and desist letter to Sarovar [Indian Source Forge] In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20040419203229.02412c70@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> References: <5.1.0.14.1.20040419203229.02412c70@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <1E77B8D0-927F-11D8-9CA4-000A95684A18@pobox.com> On Apr 20, 2004, at 1:05 AM, Badri Natarajan wrote: > What I don't understand is what "express provisions of law" Sarovar is > contravening by hosting Play Fair. The Indian lawyer claims there are > some provisions in the IT Act and the Copyright Act, but Indian law > has no equivalent of the US DMCA's anti-circumvention provision, so I > wonder exactly what he is talking about... I guess now that PlayFair is off Sarovar, Mr. Lawyer is not going to bother explaining. His threat worked; job is done. -- Kiran Jonnalagadda http://www.pobox.com/~jace From rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com Tue Apr 20 10:51:21 2004 From: rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com (Rajlakshmi Nesargi) Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 22:21:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] (no subject) Message-ID: <20040420052121.32486.qmail@web21606.mail.yahoo.com> This is in response to the thought put out On Apr 12, 2004, at 11:23 AM, anuranjan s wrote: > After the Napster is declared illegal, its quite difficult to beleive > (considering the nature of internet) that no one(frustrated with the > Napster judgment) is still using P2P technology to share music. Could > someone have any idea about such effort. FastTrack (Kazaa), Gnutella and OpenFT are very much alive and teeming with files. There are now even meta-P2P apps [1] that connect to several networks at once. DRM technologies continue to be subverted and are now moving beyond the reach of US law (to India!) [2]. Canada's Federal (Supreme?) Court recently declared that downloading copyrighted music over P2P networks is *legal* in Canada [3]. Who says P2P is dead? [1] http://gift.sourceforge.net/clients.php [2] http://playfair.sarovar.org/ [3] http://boingboing.net/2004/03/31/canadas_riaa_cant_pr.html -- Kiran Jonnalagadda It is amazing to see how the basic principle of Copyright is interpreted in different light. The judge compares having a downloaded song through p2p to having a photocopied copy in a photocopy machine. The basic principle of copyright is protection of authors on one end and the same basic principle of copyright gets defeated here since the interests of the author is not being protected. Further unless copying comes under the concept of fair use it is illegal copying. Substantial, complete or systematic copying of documents certainly is illegal and downloading entire song/ songs in my view does amount to substantial, systematic copying amounting to illegal copying. The situatin to me is the same as making duplicate of a film shown in the theatre and viewing it at home with family members would not amount to copyright violation. I further assume it would still not amount to violation of copyright if one of the family members borrows that duplicate to give it to his near and dear ones (friends included)� Best Rajlakshmi ===== "You must be the change you wish to see in the world. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"-Mahatma Gandhi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25� http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash From rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com Tue Apr 20 10:51:21 2004 From: rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com (Rajlakshmi Nesargi) Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 22:21:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] (no subject) Message-ID: <20040420052121.32486.qmail@web21606.mail.yahoo.com> This is in response to the thought put out On Apr 12, 2004, at 11:23 AM, anuranjan s wrote: > After the Napster is declared illegal, its quite difficult to beleive > (considering the nature of internet) that no one(frustrated with the > Napster judgment) is still using P2P technology to share music. Could > someone have any idea about such effort. FastTrack (Kazaa), Gnutella and OpenFT are very much alive and teeming with files. There are now even meta-P2P apps [1] that connect to several networks at once. DRM technologies continue to be subverted and are now moving beyond the reach of US law (to India!) [2]. Canada's Federal (Supreme?) Court recently declared that downloading copyrighted music over P2P networks is *legal* in Canada [3]. Who says P2P is dead? [1] http://gift.sourceforge.net/clients.php [2] http://playfair.sarovar.org/ [3] http://boingboing.net/2004/03/31/canadas_riaa_cant_pr.html -- Kiran Jonnalagadda It is amazing to see how the basic principle of Copyright is interpreted in different light. The judge compares having a downloaded song through p2p to having a photocopied copy in a photocopy machine. The basic principle of copyright is protection of authors on one end and the same basic principle of copyright gets defeated here since the interests of the author is not being protected. Further unless copying comes under the concept of fair use it is illegal copying. Substantial, complete or systematic copying of documents certainly is illegal and downloading entire song/ songs in my view does amount to substantial, systematic copying amounting to illegal copying. The situatin to me is the same as making duplicate of a film shown in the theatre and viewing it at home with family members would not amount to copyright violation. I further assume it would still not amount to violation of copyright if one of the family members borrows that duplicate to give it to his near and dear ones (friends included)� Best Rajlakshmi ===== "You must be the change you wish to see in the world. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"-Mahatma Gandhi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25� http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash From rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com Tue Apr 20 12:12:48 2004 From: rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com (Rajlakshmi Nesargi) Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 23:42:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] Napster like initiatives Message-ID: <20040420064248.82983.qmail@web21602.mail.yahoo.com> I am resending my mail since I forgot to put in the title of the subject. Sorry for the repetition. Best Rajlakshmi ===== "You must be the change you wish to see in the world. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"-Mahatma Gandhi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25� http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Rajlakshmi Nesargi Subject: no subject Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 22:21:21 -0700 (PDT) Size: 2657 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040419/cfe8bd66/attachment.mht From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 20 13:30:02 2004 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 01:00:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] PlayFair: Apple's cease and desist letter to Sarovar [Indian Source Forge] In-Reply-To: <1E77B8D0-927F-11D8-9CA4-000A95684A18@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20040420080002.27941.qmail@web13607.mail.yahoo.com> Hi all on the apple business, there is currently quite a lot of pressure to introduce a DMCA like anti circumevntion clause into the Copyright Act (Proposed Sec. 65A) . Of course that possibility of a future clause does not mean anything for the moment, and my sense is that he ghas lifted portions of the notice from the one that the Us lawyers sent, and included anti circumvention as one of the grounds. I am also not certain how he is trying to bring it within the definition of hacking in the IT act. At any rate as Kiran very rightly pointed out, increasingly the trend if to bombard people with a legal notice and threat of action, in the hope that people will back off and it works. 2 important precedents in this trend which are described in somde detail in Lessig's new book freee Culture. 1. The RIAA suing students for creating file sharing software: "That presumption will increasingly chill creativity, as the examples of extreme penalties for vague infringements continue to proliferate. It is impossible to get a clear sense of what�s allowed and what�s not, and at the same time, the penalties for crossing the line are astonishingly harsh. The four students who were threatened by the RIAA (Jesse Jordan of chapter 3 was just one) were threatened with a $98 billion lawsuit for building search engines that permitted songs to be copied. Yet World- Com�which defrauded investors of $11 billion, resulting in a loss to investors in market capitalization of over $200 billion�received a fine of a mere $750 million.1 And under legislation being pushed in Congress right now, a doctor who negligently removes the wrong leg in an operation would be liable for no more than $250,000 in damages for pain and suffering.2 Can common sense recognize the absurdity in a world where the maximum fine for downloading two songs off the Internet is more than the fine for a doctor�s negligently butchering a patient? The consequence of this legal uncertainty, tied to these extremely high penalties, is that an extraordinary amount of creativity will either never be exercised, or never be exercised in the open.We drive this creative process underground by branding the modern-day Walt Disneys �pirates". There are two points to be made here, thankfully the legal system in india is not as perverse as the US as yet and one can think in terms of countering porttions of the notice, bt it is yet another david v. goliath story. Of course I dont have as much of a distate for 'pirates' as Lessig displays in the book, and it going underground may well be another case of war by other means. Lawrence __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25� http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash From rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com Tue Apr 20 14:00:44 2004 From: rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com (Rajlakshmi Nesargi) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 01:30:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] An excellent site on TK, Genetic Resources Message-ID: <20040420083044.17148.qmail@web21604.mail.yahoo.com> The website www.bhatti.org was put up by Dr. Shakeel Bhatti, who works at WIPO and who had visited NLSIU at Bangalore. The website has all that there is to know on different aspects of traditional knowledge. Dr. Bhatti has further put in power point presentations as �slides� which provide excellent framework to understand traditional knowledge. Best Rajlakshmi V Nesargi ===== "You must be the change you wish to see in the world. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"-Mahatma Gandhi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25� http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash From rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com Tue Apr 20 14:00:53 2004 From: rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com (Rajlakshmi Nesargi) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 01:30:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] An excellent site on TK, Genetic Resources Message-ID: <20040420083053.95437.qmail@web21602.mail.yahoo.com> Hi all, The website www.bhatti.org was put up by Dr. Shakeel Bhatti, who works at WIPO and who had visited NLSIU at Bangalore. The website has all that there is to know on different aspects of traditional knowledge. Dr. Bhatti has further put in power point presentations as �slides� which provide excellent framework to understand traditional knowledge. Best Rajlakshmi V Nesargi ===== "You must be the change you wish to see in the world. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"-Mahatma Gandhi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25� http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash From shamnadbasheer at yahoo.co.in Tue Apr 20 17:59:55 2004 From: shamnadbasheer at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Shamnad=20Basheer?=) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 13:29:55 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Commons-Law] PlayFair: Apple's cease and desist letter to Sarovar [Indian Source Forge] In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20040419203229.02412c70@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <20040420122955.77792.qmail@web8005.mail.in.yahoo.com> You're quite right Badri. Though there was some move (and intensive lobbying, if I may add) to introduce a DMCA like provision in our copyright regime (about two years back), I wonder whether that amendment came through?? Shamnad --- Badri Natarajan wrote: > At 03:17 AM 4/19/2004 +0000, you wrote: > >Dear Friends, > > > >Interesting how a circumvention project tries to > avoid legal action by > >shifting geographic location. What if the project > shifts onto the Peer > >to peer networks? > > Then, I suppose they employ RIAA tactics and issue > subpoenas to get ISPs to > reveal the names of their users so they can be > approached directly. That > might be rather hard to achieve outside the US, but > then again, it may be > easier to just convince an ISP to hand over the > names of its customers > voluntarily outside the US... > > What I don't understand is what "express provisions > of law" Sarovar is > contravening by hosting Play Fair. The Indian lawyer > claims there are some > provisions in the IT Act and the Copyright Act, but > Indian law has no > equivalent of the US DMCA's anti-circumvention > provision, so I wonder > exactly what he is talking about... > > Badri > > _______________________________________________ > commons-law mailing list > commons-law at sarai.net > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner online. http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony/ From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Tue Apr 20 22:00:54 2004 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 22:00:54 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] PlayFair: Apple's cease and desist letter to Sarovar In-Reply-To: <20040420122955.77792.qmail@web8005.mail.in.yahoo.com> References: <5.1.0.14.1.20040419203229.02412c70@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> <20040420122955.77792.qmail@web8005.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040420163054.GA1550@nandini.home> Shamnad Basheer said on Tue, Apr 20, 2004 at 01:29:55PM +0100,: > (and intensive lobbying, if I may add) to introduce a DMCA like > provision in our copyright regime (about two years back), I wonder > whether that amendment came And these events are sure to revive the lobbying. We need to start something like the Electronic Frontier Foundation here. Any ideas? Any other organisation specifically working on human rights in the digital world? I believe the FSF India will be interested. I am raising this issue (of an EFF like body in India) with the FSF. -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://paivakil.port5.com +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ From asimov at vsnl.com Wed Apr 21 03:51:52 2004 From: asimov at vsnl.com (Badri Natarajan) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 23:21:52 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] EFF-India? Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.1.20040420232151.022b3760@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> At 10:00 PM 4/20/2004 +0530, you wrote: >We need to start something like the Electronic Frontier Foundation >here. > >Any ideas? Any other organisation specifically working on human rights >in the digital world? This is an excellent idea - we certainly need an EFF-India to deal with this kind of issue. There are so many IP and tech lawyers in India today, but no civil rights organization in the area.. I actually had a long chat about exactly this possibility, recently, with Cindy Cohn and Fred von Lohmann, who are, respectively, Legal Director and Senior IP Attorney at the EFF. They were very enthusiastic about the idea and said they would provide whatever support and help they could if such an initiative actually took off. However, there are significant issues that need to be addressed. First, there are funding issues. How much will it cost? Who will finance it? If you take corporate money are you beholden to take the stands they approve of? This is one major reason why the EFF is largely funded by its members and only takes corporate money when there aren't any ideological strings attached. Second, Mission and purpose - what should the organization do? I mean, "civil rights in the digital world" is all well and good, but much more specific planning is required. Should it be a litigation-only PIL shop? What about lobbying in Parliament? How broad should the scope be? (Take a look at the list of issues on the left side of the main EFF page). What about being an advocacy organization as well? Third, Location: Dependent on above two, but should it be in Bangalore, because cost of living is less than Delhi or Bombay and it is India's tech hub? Or Delhi, for the access to the Supreme Court and central Government? Personally, I think the choice comes down to these two cities, though. Fourth, Culture and "Before its time" issues: Starting any new organization is difficult, but starting EFF-India will be even more difficult because it will be a pioneer in India - an NGO for issues that simply haven't entered most people's minds yet. Fortunately, the evolution of PILs in the 80s, and the vast number of civil rights NGOs make the job easier, but this is a completely new area, especially regarding the non-litigation aspects of EFF. In particular, the US lobbying culture, and the openness required in Government for it to work, simply doesn't exist in India. That doesn't mean it isn't possible, just that it is harder. When I worked at EFF last year, I spent quite a lot of time researching and drafting comments on various DMCA issues for public hearings by the Copyright Office, and IP issues in free trade agreements. All the required information (and calls for comments) were freely available on the websites of the government departments...that kind of culture doesn't exist in India yet. Maybe EFF-India can help create it.. On the advocacy front, the challenge is making these issues relevant to people who are mostly unaware, and have bigger problems - that's a challenge even in the US, but more so in India. Okay, those are just some random thoughts off the top of my head...what does everyone else think? Badri From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 21 04:47:20 2004 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 16:17:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] EFF-India? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20040420232151.022b3760@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <20040420231720.64634.qmail@web13601.mail.yahoo.com> Hi all mahesh and badri have posted a range of interesting question. I will try and respond to the institutional question of whether we can have an EFF equivalent in India. My sense is that these debates are still in theior infancy in india at the moment though over the past few years we have seen a lot of momentum, and it may be a little early to speak of a formal institutional structure in place. There are many things that one has top think throuigh before taking a decision at creating an institutional framework, it hink we have dont even have a very good record of 'civil rights' organizations, leave aside electronic rights. There is of course a strong tradition of critical legal practise in india but very dispersed groups etc. And those who can be counted as forming a aprt of the history of critical legal practise in india have always remained very suspicious of new technolgy etc (kind of in the old tradition/ modernity debate) etc, while the younger lot of practitioners/ scholars interested in issues of electronic freedoms etc do not necessarily come from a poltical practise of law. Given these circumstances aprt from what badri has also identified in terms of resources etc, I think it would be more important to initiate a discussion / ideas etc on how we can think of collaborative models where we pool in various peoples/ organizations strenghts in forming a colation which can start taking on issues of free speech, privacy, public domain etc proactively. This coalition need not have a formal institutional structure to begin with but could move towards it int he future , but i can easily think of lawyers, techies, media practtitioners, academics, students etc who would be willing to start a group like this. Even within commons-law, cyber-law india etc i think we would have the tentative begining of a group. We can even begin with mapping out some of the individuals. groups etc who are already working on various asoects of what ane EFF-India wouold do and think of a meeting etc where we can figure out how we start working in a more networked manner. I am sure fred noronha of bytes for all could help with this. The idea has a lot of potential and glad that this debate has opened up Lawrence __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25� http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash From asimov at vsnl.com Wed Apr 21 05:48:58 2004 From: asimov at vsnl.com (Badri Natarajan) Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 01:18:58 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] EFF-India? In-Reply-To: <20040420231720.64634.qmail@web13601.mail.yahoo.com> References: <5.1.0.14.1.20040420232151.022b3760@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.1.20040421011129.02308560@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> I agree with everything Lawrence has said. Specifically, carrying on from his email, I think the way to move forward now is: 1. To identify and gather people who may be interested/helpful to the project in an informal manner. 2. Decide on issues to pursue. 3. Pursue them. That is to say, for example, if the Yahoo Groups blocking issue had still been active, there could have been some action taken regarding it. Or perhaps an initiative to find out more details regarding the Electronic Voting Machines being used in the elections. (Except for assertions that they are "tamper proof", I have seen precious little info about them). Or maybe a letter trying to counter the lobbying efforts for a DMCA style anti-circumvention provision in India. Small things to be sure, but concrete steps and *action* moving towards a larger role, and an eventual institutional presence of an EFF-India. Any initiative like this needs to be driven through with a good deal of enthusiasm - a lot of people are no doubt interested, but it will have to be co-ordinated and pushed through - all that energy must be harnessed and *action* must be taken. Badri PS - Lawrence, you are either awake really early or really late, if you're in India! From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Wed Apr 21 18:31:23 2004 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 18:31:23 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] EFF-India? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20040420232151.022b3760@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> References: <5.1.0.14.1.20040420232151.022b3760@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <20040421130123.GE1088@nandini.home> Badri Natarajan said on Tue, Apr 20, 2004 at 11:21:52PM +0100,: > Senior IP Attorney at the EFF. They were very enthusiastic about the idea > and said they would provide whatever support and help they could if such an Great. > First, there are funding issues. How much will it cost? Who will What do you want to spend money on? Think big. Start small. > Second, Mission and purpose - what should the organization do? I > mean, "civil rights in the digital world" is all well and good, but > much more specific planning is required. Should it be a > litigation-only PIL shop? What about lobbying in Parliament? How > broad should the scope be? (Take a look at the list of issues on > the left side of the main EFF page). What about being an advocacy > organization as well? Should we tie down ourselves like this? Is it not better that we take things as they come? Do whatever the situation requires us to? Recently, the software community in Europe took to the streets, blacked out their pages lobbied, etc, all for preventing a change in law relating to software patenting. If need arises we have to take to the streets. Is anybody feeling uncomfortable? I am. But if things proceed like this, I will be even more uncomfortable inside my home. > Third, Location: How about the internet? For the time being, we do things as a web community. Will the EFF provide a facility for a mailing list? We start off the mailing list, and as more people come in, we will move towards formal structures. I am open to other ideas as well. > Fourth, Culture and "Before its time" issues: Starting any new PlayFair/Sarovar.org shows that the time has come. As mentioned earlier on this list, we have had a close brush with the DMCA. When the next round of lobbying starts, we need to have a community around. > organization is difficult, but starting EFF-India will be even more > difficult because it will be a pioneer in India - an NGO for issues > that simply haven't entered most people's minds yet. Yes. A beginning has to be made some time, some where. Why not now and here? > In particular, the US lobbying culture, and the openness required > in Government for it to work, simply doesn't exist in India. That Which is why an EFF is even more important. Precisely because we do not have a lobbying culture, instead of lobbying and PIL, the Indian organisation we need to work at the grass root level. Making other people, NGOs, students, educational institutions, etc. aware of the issues. > it isn't possible, just that it is harder. When I worked at EFF > last year, I spent quite a lot of time researching and drafting > comments on various DMCA issues for public hearings by the > Copyright Office, and IP issues in free trade agreements. Ah. So we have expertise. We have the will power. We have the need. So when do we start off? > departments...that kind of culture doesn't exist in India yet. Maybe > EFF-India can help create it.. One of the reasons I raised the issue of EFF. > On the advocacy front, the challenge is making these issues > relevant to people who are mostly unaware, and have bigger problems > - that's a challenge even in the US, but more so in India. Not only are poeple unaware, they are also not exposed; because of poor penetration of the web. But, IMO, the online community in India is bigger than an average Western nation. Please correct me if I am wrong. -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://paivakil.port5.com +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Wed Apr 21 18:38:44 2004 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 18:38:44 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] EFF-India? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20040421011129.02308560@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> References: <5.1.0.14.1.20040420232151.022b3760@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> <5.1.0.14.1.20040421011129.02308560@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <20040421130844.GF1088@nandini.home> Badri Natarajan said on Wed, Apr 21, 2004 at 01:18:58AM +0100,: > regarding it. Or perhaps an initiative to find out more details > regarding the Electronic Voting Machines being used in the > elections. I think, (I am subject to correction) our EVMs use hardware circuits. Hence, they are *likely* to be tamper proof as claimed. The US machines, AFAIK, are software based. Which makes them suspectible to tampering. > (Except for assertions that they are "tamper proof", I have seen > precious little info about them). I too would appreciate more info. -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://paivakil.port5.com +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ From asimov at vsnl.com Thu Apr 22 06:02:35 2004 From: asimov at vsnl.com (Badri Natarajan) Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 01:32:35 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] EFF-India? In-Reply-To: <20040421130123.GE1088@nandini.home> References: <5.1.0.14.1.20040420232151.022b3760@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> <5.1.0.14.1.20040420232151.022b3760@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.1.20040422012214.00a38110@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> At 06:31 PM 4/21/2004 +0530, you wrote: >Think big. Start small. I agree. I think the key is to actually Take A Concrete Step. Once action is taken, however small, further development can be built around that core. It's much more difficult if we just keep talking about it and then don't actually do anything. I mentioned specific steps that could be taken in my other post. It might also be a good idea to spread this discussion to some other mailing lists (cyberlaw-india and india-gii for a start..) >Should we tie down ourselves like this? Is it not better that we take >things as they come? Do whatever the situation requires us to? Sure, but some idea of priorities and focus is always good. But I agree, we should leave plenty of room for flexibility. >For the time being, we do things as a web community. Will the EFF >provide a facility for a mailing list? We start off the mailing list, >and as more people come in, we will move towards formal structures. This makes sense I think. EFF will probably provide the facility for a mailing list, but I don't think we need to ask them. I'm sure we can get a list hosted somewhere else without too much hassle. For that matter, I think the early discussion can (and should) stay within the established communities at commons-law, cyberlaw-india, and other lists, to spread the message and discussion as widely as possible. >A beginning has to be made some time, some where. Why not now and >here? Indeed. So now we just need to actually do it. Perhaps the first step is to cross-post the discussion we have been having to cyberlaw-india and india-gii mailing lists to see what the members of those lists, think? What does everyone else on *this* list, think? Badri From vishwas123_ at hotmail.com Thu Apr 22 23:30:20 2004 From: vishwas123_ at hotmail.com (Vishwas Devaiah) Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 18:00:20 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] USPTO at its best! Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040422/c58942ae/attachment.html From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Fri Apr 23 09:46:42 2004 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 09:46:42 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] EFF-India? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20040422012214.00a38110@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> References: <5.1.0.14.1.20040420232151.022b3760@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> <5.1.0.14.1.20040420232151.022b3760@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> <5.1.0.14.1.20040422012214.00a38110@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <20040423041642.GB1995@nandini.home> Badri Natarajan said on Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 01:32:35AM +0100,: > What does everyone else on *this* list, think? Please do that. Will somebody please provide me (off list) details of the other lists Badri mentioned? -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://paivakil.port5.com +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ From annymcbeal at rediffmail.com Sat Apr 24 14:24:15 2004 From: annymcbeal at rediffmail.com (anuranjan s) Date: 24 Apr 2004 08:54:15 -0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] my abstract! Message-ID: <20040424085415.9417.qmail@mailweb34.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040424/222f0a26/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- Hi all, As instructed by Sudhir, I am posting a copy of my final abstract for the July workshop here. I am really very apprehensive about getting adverse remarks, but please feel free to remark and comment. Frankness is appreciated. regards anuranjan The Abstract The modern understanding of patent law has led to its extension to various new areas of science and technologies, which were never conceived by the earlier supporters and advocates of patent law. Areas like biotechnology and business models are some of the examples of such technologies. The purpose of patent law (which still remains unforgotten) is to promote the innovation of new sciences and inventions which are useful to humankind. With the blind extension of patents to these new areas of science, its impact upon the growth of science has largely gone unassessed. Our understanding of what is an “invention” for the purpose of patent protection also seems to have got misplaced where patents are now been granted on “purified and isolated” gene sequences, which can, by no stretch of imagination be called “an invention”. Nevertheless patent law now understands them as invention and protects them from any kind of use that any third party may be capable to put them to. This has caused serious problems with the normal practice of many a medical practitioners and researchers, who have been legally restrained from screening their patients for gene mutations, since those genes are patented by another. Another way of looking at it is this- the patients, without the permission of the patent holder, can't get their genes tested, not because patent holder will sue them for infringement (after all our human rights have not totally flew with the wind) but because that doctor or practitioner is not permitted to make money by testing the gene for mutations patented by someone else. Other concerns about researchers being unable to use the earlier freely available data for their research have also come to the fore. Are these impediments contemplated by the law makers, if they are then how they justify the social costs of uncured and undiagnosed patients that the society bears? Fanatic enforcement of intellectual property rights upon data that was in the past freely shared is not just the result of the extended scope of intellectual property rights but also the changed mindset that it has brought about in the people exercising this right. This impact of modern patent law over the normal practice of science has largely gone unattended. Are all these concerns just an overreaction to the new avatar of the modern patent law or do they indicate something more important? ‘Incentive argument’ which is at the core of various justifications that back the intellectual property law, and now is used more often than it was at any other time doesn’t seem to justify the above practice of the law. It’s difficult to believe that the law contemplates such a situation and allows for it. Practice of Science requires free flow of information. As many sociologists of science (Merges in ‘Sociology of Science’) suggest- ‘science is a community activity’. Historical studies have also shown that the scientific community has always worked by sharing data and information that is obtained by any member of such community. Publishing the research results in a science journal or any other such peer platform has been the trend with new findings in science. But modern patent law overlooks this practice and creates property rights in every bit of progress that may be made in an area of research, preoccupying the researcher to involve in a race for getting his finding “propertied” rather than sharing it with the peer group. Test data, discoveries in basic science (as distinguished from ‘applied science’) have also entered the protection cover of patent law without an assessment of its effect on the ‘progress of science’. Does the modern patent law create enough incentive for scientific community, as a whole, to ensure the progress of science? The community without which Newton wouldn’t have been able to understand the fundamentals of physics and Einstein wouldn’t have learned basic mathematics. Modern patent law doesn’t accept this ‘share’ culture of science and tries to change it rather dramatically. The ‘no fence’ culture of science is extremely important to the progress of science. Without sharing of data society in general and the scientific community in particular will have to bear the cost of duplication of scientific findings. Imagine several scientists working on finding a common test data but working independently and secretly and upon making the discovery keeping it a secret until they can find any useful, profit-making way of using it. Will such a culture be able to ensure the similar results that science has so far produced for humankind? Modern patent law does not create any value for humankind by putting price tags on everything that requires a little effort and a lot of financial investments. It rather essentially reduces their value by not recognizing them as scientific tools of inherent value to the scientific community and hence usefulness to the society. It instead commodifies every new discovery or a finding and in the process affects the development of science in the long run. If we accept this as the reality then what is the driving force behind this overwhelming extension of the length and breadth of the patent law? Aren’t the innovators of these useful sciences, the biggest beneficiaries of the enlarged patent system and if they are why should we prevent them from getting their due, which the society owes to them? This calls for a closer look at the inventors protected by modern patent law, i.e. “modern inventors”. It is quite evident from the emerging trends in patent filing and litigation involving big players, mainly huge powerful Multinational Companies and not the single individual innovators. How could corporations be stimulated by the incentives given to innovate, they are not real human beings, they are artificial. Intellectual property law is based on the assumptions of a stimulating effect upon human beings and not upon corporates which would act upon incentives to innovate and hence would benefit society. On the contrary ‘profit-making’ is the real motivation which moves these modern innovators, which is quite evident from the strong lobby of these ‘new innovators’ who supported the inclusion of intellectual property into international trade. Not many studies have evolved around the “new basis” of intellectual property that, incentive to the corporates act as an incentive for the employees in that associate. What really moves the employees could be something very different from what the law presumes? It could be a zeal for a ‘peer-recognition’ or a major raise in the salary or may be a special reward. If this is what exactly moves an innovation, how can the present system of incentives be most efficient? The ‘reward system’ developed by Shavell and Ypersele and ‘Patent buy-outs’ suggested by Michael Kremer are two alternative models for giving incentives to innovate, among which the first one is quite similar to the reward system which could be operable within the corporates to stimulate innovations within an organisation. Notion of an innovator has undergone a sea-change over a period of 7-8 decades, from it being a person to it being any entity, which can be stimulated by giving legal monopolies. But the original assumptions of the intellectual property law have remained the same which then delinks the object of the law and its actual effect. A serious psychological and historical study of “the innovator” in the patent law would show that current “innovators” were and are not contemplated by the intellectual property law. This then has a direct implication upon the whole “incentive argument”, sustenance of which then becomes questionable. It is further important to question the motivations of a true innovator is it for rewards, is it for monetary benefits or for the fulfilment of any curious faculties of one’s own mind? If reimbursement of money the only justification for having the IP system, the whole idea of “innovativeness” becomes more vague. Why would one invest money in an area of research simply because it gives back all the investment that he has made? Its obviously for the additional profits (which many an economists argue makes the present system highly inefficient). If its not for monetary reimbursement alone, then the actual money spent by the innovator can be returned by better and more efficient means that the current IP system, like the optional reward system that Shavell argue to be much more efficient than a uniform, highly protective IP system. The current IP system has many (un)assessed costs involved which if taken into consideration would prove to be much higher than its advocated benefits. Either ways the existing system of stimulating innovations needs serious reconsideration and several of its set assumptions need to be re-looked at in this era of technological revolution. Problems of artificial hurdles created by the IP law in an easy access to emerging technologies has serious repercussions upon the very rationale for the law i.e. to stimulate the growth of technology for human welfare, it fails on both the counts. A study in this area is also likely to show that there is a clear link between our understanding of ‘an inventor’ and ‘an invention’. By turning a blind eye to the former, we can not hope to keep a sensible understanding of the latter, which is what seems to be happening today. Legal understanding of ‘invention’ has reached most absurd ends where it never went before. If we accept corporates as inventors, we might as well accept a bit of anomaly in what these inventors invent. From sudhir75 at hotmail.com Sat Apr 24 15:32:22 2004 From: sudhir75 at hotmail.com (Sudhir) Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 11:02:22 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] Student and Independent Research fellows Message-ID: <001e01c429e3$3c801b00$842b01a3@Sudhir> Dear all In 2004 the IPL Project, of which this list is a part, has awarded six student fellowships and two independent fellowships to encourage research in diverse areas of Intellectual Property Law. In the next 2-6 months, these researchers will post their proposals and reports on the commons-law list. I would like to invite everyone on the list to engage with the researchers in debate, either on or off the list, to help them develop their work to the best of their ability. The list of topics and researchers are as follows: Independent Researchers ------------------------------------------- 1. Aarthi Chellappa - Traditional Knowledge and IP protection 2. Pramod Nair - Contempt of Court and Free Speech Student Researchers ---------------------------------------- 1. Sudip M and Ram - Open Source v Proprietary Software in Hyderabad Higher Education Institutions 2. Mayur S - Video, Uncontrolled viewers and the Panoptic State 3. Nithya Reddy - Folklore and IP: Protection of Handicrafts 4. Anuranjan S - Patent and Innovation 5. Cindu B - Patenting of Software 6. Prashant Iyengar - Pirate as Revolutionary Thanks Sudhir Krishnaswamy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040424/60ced67a/attachment.html From sudhir75 at hotmail.com Sun Apr 25 14:58:03 2004 From: sudhir75 at hotmail.com (Sudhir) Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 10:28:03 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] EFF-India? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20040422012214.00a38110@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <001001c42aa7$9b8bc530$842b01a3@Sudhir> I've been following the discussion about an EFF equivalent in India with interest. From the early stages of designing the commons-law project we've tried not to recast debates and initiatives in US academy and civil society sector into the Indian space. By allowing the debates and issues around IPL and the Internet to develop differently in India and using these to form the basis of new collectives, we will develop a more robust local approach to these issues. Having said all that - I am all for a coming together of like minded persons to present more comprehensive and well argued inputs into the policy framework and court litigation in India. Two recent developments that call for such an input are the TRAI consultation papers on broadband and FM Radio. I reckon that the next step we need to take is not to start another discussion list but to find an institutional home which would house such an initiative. An office with a couple of full time researchers to anchor this initiative. Any offers? Best Sudhir Krishnaswamy -----Original Message----- From: commons-law-bounces at sarai.net [mailto:commons-law-bounces at sarai.net] On Behalf Of Badri Natarajan Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2004 1:33 AM To: commons-law at mail.sarai.net Subject: Re: [Commons-Law] EFF-India? At 06:31 PM 4/21/2004 +0530, you wrote: >Think big. Start small. I agree. I think the key is to actually Take A Concrete Step. Once action is taken, however small, further development can be built around that core. It's much more difficult if we just keep talking about it and then don't actually do anything. I mentioned specific steps that could be taken in my other post. It might also be a good idea to spread this discussion to some other mailing lists (cyberlaw-india and india-gii for a start..) >Should we tie down ourselves like this? Is it not better that we take >things as they come? Do whatever the situation requires us to? Sure, but some idea of priorities and focus is always good. But I agree, we should leave plenty of room for flexibility. >For the time being, we do things as a web community. Will the EFF >provide a facility for a mailing list? We start off the mailing list, >and as more people come in, we will move towards formal structures. This makes sense I think. EFF will probably provide the facility for a mailing list, but I don't think we need to ask them. I'm sure we can get a list hosted somewhere else without too much hassle. For that matter, I think the early discussion can (and should) stay within the established communities at commons-law, cyberlaw-india, and other lists, to spread the message and discussion as widely as possible. >A beginning has to be made some time, some where. Why not now and >here? Indeed. So now we just need to actually do it. Perhaps the first step is to cross-post the discussion we have been having to cyberlaw-india and india-gii mailing lists to see what the members of those lists, think? What does everyone else on *this* list, think? Badri _______________________________________________ commons-law mailing list commons-law at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law From sunil at mahiti.org Mon Apr 26 07:06:19 2004 From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 01:36:19 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] PlayFair: Apple's cease and desist letter to Sarovar [Indian Source Forge] In-Reply-To: <20040420122955.77792.qmail@web8005.mail.in.yahoo.com> References: <20040420122955.77792.qmail@web8005.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1082911324.630.17.camel@box> Dear Friends, PlayFair is on Slashdot again. http://kandalaya.org/playfair.txt And threads on fsf-friends http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2004-April/001906.html http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2004-April/001924.html http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2004-April/001933.html http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2004-April/001955.html Congratulations to Anand Babu for taking over as the official Project Maintainer for "PlayFair". Raj Mathur from Linux Delhi says: Sarovar, CVR, etc, please fight this case. And to put my money where my mouth is, I'm putting in Rs. 1000 to help you get a lawyer. I'm also forwarding this message to more lists and requesting people to come up and help defray your legal costs. Please set up some sort legal fund and fight! Are the Commons - Lawyers listening? Thanks, Sunil On Tue, 2004-04-20 at 12:29, Shamnad Basheer wrote: > You're quite right Badri. Though there was some move > (and intensive lobbying, if I may add) to introduce a > DMCA like provision in our copyright regime (about two > years back), I wonder whether that amendment came > through?? > > Shamnad Thanks, ಸುನೀಲ್ -- 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 51150580. Mobile: +91 80 36701931 "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 jace at pobox.com Mon Apr 26 09:12:07 2004 From: jace at pobox.com (Kiran Jonnalagadda) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 09:12:07 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] PlayFair: Apple's cease and desist letter to Sarovar [Indian Source Forge] In-Reply-To: <1082911324.630.17.camel@box> References: <20040420122955.77792.qmail@web8005.mail.in.yahoo.com> <1082911324.630.17.camel@box> Message-ID: On Apr 26, 2004, at 7:06 AM, Sunil Abraham wrote: > http://kandalaya.org/playfair.txt It's interesting to see Rajkumar and Raju Mathur indulging in their own bit of subterfuge trying to make SourceForge appear to be a GNU Savannah-like site, when in fact SourceForge wrote the software that both Savannah and Sarovar use, and continues to bear the cost of software maintenance. And there's an error in this paragraph. > 4. PlayFair saves time in converting songs. The Apple iPod permits > the iTunes user to make a music CD out of iTunes songs. After that > the user can convert the songs in that CD to MP3 or another digital > format for playing on portable, non-Apple music players. By > converting iTunes songs directly to a common digital format, PlayFair > shortcuts this sequence by eliminating the need to make a CD and then > convert it. The Apple iPod is a hardware device consisting of a hard disk and an audio player. The iPod knows nothing about music CDs. Fact is, iTunes itself lets you burn unlimited copies of purchased music (even on CDRWs), so what PlayFair does for you is shortcut a feature already present in iTunes, by eliminating the need to pass music through a CD. Audiophiles will have noted by now that if you decode and re-encode in a lossy format (which both MP3 and AAC are), there is bound to be a loss of quality. It's the same as editing a JPEG file and saving again as JPEG. PlayFair's protection-stripping mechanism does not prevent this quality loss. -- Kiran Jonnalagadda http://www.pobox.com/~jace From prashantiyengar at hotpop.com Sun Apr 25 00:04:24 2004 From: prashantiyengar at hotpop.com (Prashant) Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 00:04:24 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Abstract Message-ID: <000001c42a2a$cb16d240$66b2013d@Pranav> Dear all, Hi, Here is my abstract for the student fellowship. I hope you will find it interesting. All the references are by way of endnotes provided at the bottom of the text. Comments/criticism/brickbats/suggestions if any are most welcome. Warm Regards, Prashant Pirate as Revolutionary Prashant Iyengar, NALSAR I "Until the pirates are scared by giving exemplary punishments in cases of copyright violations and the common end users realize that in the long run protection of copyright is beneficial not only to those who are involved in creation and commercialization of intellectual properties, but to all including themselves, piracy will prevail. What is needed, therefore, is an effective enforcement machinery along with a wide spread propaganda highlighting the adversities associated with piracy. "[i] Study concluded by the Department of Education, Govt. of India, 1999 Last December, a friend of mine accompanied a crackdown team sent by a reputed transnational company in Delhi to "crack" down on a gang reportedly engaged in trademark violations. Reproduced below is her account of the experience. "We received a tip-off from an informant and proceeded to the spot with 6 police officers, none of whom were in uniform. On reaching the area, different shops from the area were entered. No warrants/search orders were taken. Upon discovering a cache of contraband goods in one shop, the police officer began hitting the shopkeeper who had been co-operative throughout the affair. Later, several of the shop owners in the area were rounded up and taken into custody. None of them had any legal representation." The idea for this paper is loosely prompted (for the lack of a better word) by this excess. Copyright legislations protect against acts of infringement by criminalising the copycat. The rationale, vaguely, is that if you grant a monopoly to the creator over the distribution of her works, you reward originality and prevent economic waste.[ii] Society benefits in the long run, justdontaskhow. When Martin Luther published the first translated bible, it was met with condemnation and repression. He was proclaimed an outlaw and a heretic for his opposition to the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. [iii] Eventually, however, it contributed to the rise of Protestantism in Europe, and Protestantism is blamed today for, among other things, the rise of capitalism and the advent of the industrial age.[iv] While an analogy of the plight of a trademark offender to that of Martin Luther might not seem entirely appropriate, it is, approximately [v] what I am about to try. My concern in this paper is that most mainstream discourse about IPR today foregrounds its economic aspects - loss to the publisher and so on - completely ignoring the pernicious impact such laws have on the freedom of expression. What isn't readily noticed, or not noticed nearly enough is that like the oppressive force of the Roman Catholic Church, or even the British imposing restrictions on the Freedom of press in India, Intellectual Property Rights, whether justifiable on other grounds or not, have a similarly stifling effect on people's freedom of speech and expression. While the form may differ, the effect is qualitatively the same. So I'm beginning this paper with the premise that when put in terms of the loss of one's freedom to express, copyright doesn't sound like such a bright idea. The wrath of the angry Holy Roman Empire wasn't enough to subdue Martin Luther. They should have turned to copyright. II An article in The Hindu in June 2003, relying on a Federation of Booksellers and Publishers Association of India (FBPAI) assessment, reported that book piracy accounts for a loss of 400 crores annually to publishers in India.[vi] We are prompted to believe, for this emotive reason, that 'piracy' is a scourge that touches each of our lives. Most reports surveying its incidence cite lower prices as one reason for rampant piracy. They are also quite candid in telling us that among the most pirated are medical, engineering and other professional books, encyclopaedias and popular fiction. "Pirate" originally meant a robber of ships on the high seas. Today, Blackbeard prints books and sells them cheap. It's nuts. (Aside, the anecdote of the trademark offender's plight is a particularly stark example, if a little extreme, of what happens when a new age pirate encounters state machinery still tuned in to the old meaning of the word.) Today we are led to believe that publishing books, a perfectly honourable activity in the 16th century, is similar to piracy, which was not. And the thing that makes us believe so, counter to our intuition, is Copyright law. Not only that, we now believe that our freedom to express may be sometimes subdued peremptorily because someone else must first profit from it for atleast 50 years after he is dead. This is a paper about copyright infringement. In this paper, I propose to carry out a study of the pirate as revolutionary. I intend to, through a survey of media reports and interviews of the various stakeholders involved, (be they the end-user pirates or the middlemen-pirates, lawyers, policemen or even judges) try and get behind the curtain of the enormous currency figures of piracy thrown at us by corporate surveys. The attempt is to get at the root of notions of piracy in society today, to find out how far and the extent to which the antagonism is influenced by misplaced notions of "Intellect as property" and 'piracy as theft'. My contention is that the wholesale use of loaded words like "piracy" "intellectual property", along with widely publicised reports of huge fictitious losses by publishing houses have had the cumulative effect of entrenching a particular model of intellectual property into the collective mindset of people, so that the corresponding loss of freedom is never even considered. The approach to the paper would be part-doctrinal and empirical in part. In the course of this study, I propose to conduct five levels of enquiry: The first target of my proposed enquiry would be students in various academic streams. They would be asked to respond to questions like whether they have ever purchased or used books second hand / downloaded MP3 songs off the internet and whether they find their actions in doing so, problematic. At the second level of my enquiry, I would be engaging with professionals from different streams - lawyers, doctors, engineers and such. Questions posed to them would be directed towards eliciting the effect 'piracy' has played in their lives and would record their perceptions of Copyright laws and the justifications they offer for it's existence. An attempt would be made to seek out professionals from various classes and from different callings as far as possible. Copyright-holders would constitute the third category of my survey respondents. The line of questioning posed to them would attempt to bring out their expectations in 'authoring' their respective works, and whether (and if so, the extent to which) monetary incentive was a factor in their creative endeavours. With specific reference to literary works, by interviewing both writers in English as well as writers in vernacular languages, I am interested in testing for a difference in attitude of the authors towards their creations. A component of my questionnaire would also be the extent to which they perceive piracy as a genuine threat to their works. Pirates and Publishers, representing opposite ends of the copyright spectrum would comprise the fourth constituency in my survey. The enquiry would attempt to measure them up to their respective stereotypes i.e Pirates as thieves and publishers as champions of culture. Lastly, I would be interviewing law-enforcement agents at various levels (from policemen to lawyers and judges) on the role they conceive copyright laws as playing in society. Questions aimed at arriving at the factors that prompt their particular perception of copyright or correspondingly of piracy would be a running theme across the four survey targets. The doctrinal portion of my paper would draw mostly from materials critical of the copyright system as it exists, and an attempt would be made to relate these as far as possible to my survey conclusions. "Copyright piracy, ., is a theft and therefore is a crime. But because of its white colour (sic) nature, many a time copyright piracy is not perceived as a crime at all, or at least not as serious as thefts are ordinarily considered. This is perhaps one of the greatest problems associated with the effective control of the piracy phenomenon, more so in a developing country like India. Our society condemns a bank robbery or even a small household theft."[vii] Department of Education, Govt. of India, 1999 _____ [i] N.K. Nair, A. K. Barman, 'STUDY ON COPYRIGHT PIRACY INDA' , http://www.education.nic.in/htmlweb/cr_piracy_study/cpr2.htm [ii] The 'economic incentive' for copyright is not its only rationale. Depending on the part of the world you might happen to be in, it also stems from a natural right of the creator/author to his/her work, or, in some cases arises from the recognition of the right of the author/creator to the fruits of her labour. [iii] By an order titled "The Edict of Worms" issued by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor on May 25, 1521 at Worms, among other things, anyone was permitted to kill Luther without suffering legal consequence, and the property of Luther's followers and supporters could be seized by force. Src. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Worms [iv] See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Available at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/WEBER/cover.html [v] It might have been closer, for the purposes of this abstract, if it was a peddler of pirated books (trademark violations involve an element of deception which make them, within the scheme of IPR violations, not-so-good material for analogy) who was rounded up. Unfortunately, no amount of persuasion on my part would convince my friend that this was the case! [vi] R. GOPALAN , The bane of book piracy http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/lr/2003/06/01/stories/2003060100490700.htm [vii] http://www.blonnet.com/2002/06/07/stories/2002060702900300.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040425/0ebe734b/attachment.html From shireen_mirza at hotpop.com Mon Apr 26 19:42:27 2004 From: shireen_mirza at hotpop.com (Shireen Mirza) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 22:12:27 +0800 Subject: [Commons-Law] [Reader-list] The Everydays of Eternity: A Study of Muhurrum Message-ID: <200404261412.i3QECRYB012849@imsm030.netvigator.com> The Everydays of Eternity: A Study of Muhurrum processions among the Shias The History Karbala is the cornerstone of institutionalized devotion and mourning (azadari). Its tale is recounted in vivid details in the commemorative gatherings (majalis) during the first two months of the Islamic calendar, Muhurrum and Safar, and throughout the year in various other contexts, such as when personal losses are mourned. For Shias, the event of Karbala is inextricably bound to the issue of succession to the Prophet Mohammed, the issue that caused the first major split in the larger Muslim community: The Prophet had clearly designated his successor in the form of his cousin and son-in-law, Ali b. Abi Talib, after whom the spiritual leadership of the Muslim community would be the sole providence of Al -------------- next part -------------- ***** NOTE: An attachment named cd writing error.ERR.scr was deleted from this message because it possibly contained a windows executable or other potentially dangerous file type. Contact root at sarai.net for more information. From sudhir75 at hotmail.com Wed Apr 28 14:46:12 2004 From: sudhir75 at hotmail.com (Sudhir) Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 10:16:12 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] Government Open Source Policy Message-ID: <004a01c42d01$737c26f0$842b01a3@Sudhir> An interesting news article on the Union Government's policy of technology neutrality in the desktop environment. Unlike China, South Korea and Japan who have come together to promote open source software to counter MS's dominance of the desktop market, in India it open source enters the software debate as an aid to development! Best Sudhir http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=45825 India sits on the fence in open source debate ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU Send Feedback E-mail this story Print this story NEW DELHI, APRIL 26: The country's official policy on software remains vendor, platform and technology neutral, tough reports claim developing countries need open source and free software more than the developed world. ''We are not mandating anything, not making anything compulsory. We are for the market place to decide which is better,'' says a Department of IT official on the Central government's decision not to take sides in the open source versus proprietary software debate. One reason for tech-neutrality is the total cost of ownership (TCO) linked with software. TCO typically includes running, operation and maintenance costs that can significantly push up the overall cost of software. ''The total cost of ownership of software needs to be factored in. Not just initial investment, but overall operational cost over the life of a product,'' says the official. Besides, even though open and free software such as GNU/Linux, which allow users to modify and re-distribute copies, are associated with lower total cost of ownership, they are yet to reach a ''critical mass'' audience. ''More than 90 per cent of software used is proprietary. Though the movement is growing strongly in India and there is a definite opportunity, we are for vendor and platform neutrality,'' the official said. But in a November, 2003 study of licence fees for proprietary software and GDP per capita for 176 countries, online journal First Monday said, ''...the total cost of ownership (TCO) advantage lies with open source, and the share of licence fees in TCO is much higher than in high labour cost countries.'' The study by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, programme leader in the University of Maastricht, based on piracy figures from the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the World Bank Development Indicators database, 2001, states that software piracy was at 92 per cent in China, followed by 70 per cent in India and 83 per cent in Pakistan. In the same regions, proprietary software prices relative to GDP/capita are also high - 7.37, 14.53 and 16.20 GDP months in China, India and Pakistan respectively. As per the study, the poorer a country, the more it ends up paying for proprietary software purchased. In richer countries with higher labour costs, costs cut by purchasing free software don't necessarily reduce overall operational costs. On the other hand, when labour costs are low, as in developing countries, ''the share of the license fee in the total cost of ownership is much more significant, even prohibitively so.'' -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040428/59ea181e/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 43 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040428/59ea181e/attachment.gif -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 183 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040428/59ea181e/attachment-0003.gif From sunil at mahiti.org Thu Apr 29 05:41:48 2004 From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham) Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 00:11:48 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Real Dialogue: The Tech interviews Jack Valenti Message-ID: <1083197507.797.2.camel@box> http://www-tech.mit.edu/V124/N20/ValentiIntervie.20f.html Real Dialogue: The Tech interviews Jack Valenti By Keith J. Winstein SENIOR EDITOR Jack Valenti, the iconic 82-year-old who has headed the Motion Picture Association of America for the last 38 years, spoke at the MIT Communications Forum last Thursday. The MPAA offered The Tech a chance to ask Valenti questions after his talk, and -- as a former Tech news reporter interested in technology and copyright -- I got drafted. Valenti is an incredibly polished advocate for the movie studios. He has numerous legislative and regulatory successes to his name, and his stated commitment to honest debate (he spoke passionately several times about his commitment to the “ideal of civic discourse” and his disgust at Washington, D.C.’s lack of it) is admirable. But we don’t have a real debate on copyright issues. We have rival camps that rarely understand each other. Virtually everybody I know and encounter on the Internet thinks Valenti’s signal accomplishments are bad. He can claim credit for the anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which make it illegal to build your own DVD player and well-nigh impossible to watch DVDs legally under the GNU/Linux operating system, as well as the Federal Communication Commission’s Broadcast Flag, which will make it illegal or virtually impossible to build your own digital television receiver or, again, watch HDTV under Linux. Everybody in Hollywood, and everybody in Congress, seems to love these things. There is little compromise, meeting of the minds, or mutual understanding, between these two sides. Three years ago, I organized an MIT IAP class and invited Valenti to come. (He politely declined.) When the MPAA called to ask if I wanted to talk with him for ten minutes last week, I finally had my chance to take a shot at reaching some tiny mutual understanding. I found Valenti woefully unfamiliar with the arguments of “our side” -- the same arguments that “we” wank about every day on Zephyr, on Slashdot, and in 6.805 (Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier), the class I TAed for Professor Hal Abelson. A compromise, or at least a solution to these issues that doesn’t involve outlawing all tinkering and all independent engineering, seems to be possible: we’re just not getting through to each other. The dystopia of Richard Stallman’s “The Right to Read” at www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html is not an inevitability. But if we can’t manage to have a real conversation with “the other side” -- and a longer one than my ten minutes with Valenti -- that’s where we might be headed. Here are some excerpts from our conversation: The Tech: You’re described by various people as the best lobbyist ever. Do you have any tips for the other side, about how they can achieve better victories in the legislative area? Jack Valenti: I hope that I’m a good persuader, that I’m able to make advocacy of a cause that people say, “You know, that makes sense.” ‘Lobbyist’ has a connotation to me that gives me little shivers. But I like to believe that I try to make things simple to understand. And frankly, if I can understand it, then I figure everybody else can understand it, because I am not a technologist. ... But I try to make things simple and clear as I can, and I think that helps you persuade other people. TT: Everybody I know thinks the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Broadcast Flag are awful. And everybody in Congress disagrees. This does not lead to good debate and good public policy, when people can’t even talk to each other. How can we have a good debate on these topics? JV: I don’t know. I go on forums, and panels, and Rich [Taylor, an MPAA spokesman] does the same. We’re available to anybody. I never believe in hostile debates. That’s not my style. I believe that we ought to talk objectively about it. I think for anything that I’m advocating, I’m willing to be in an open debate with anybody about it. Because if my ideas have no bottom, then they ought not be even heard. The broadcast flag -- if you are in your home, then you can copy anything that’s on over-the-air television to your heart’s content. The only time that you will know there’s a broadcast flag is if you try to take one of those copies and redistribute it on the Internet. Then, the flag says, ‘No, you can’t redistribute it.’ But you can do everything you’re doing right now -- you’ll never know there’s a broadcast flag. Well, why would people object to it? TT: I’ll tell you, because I’m an engineer, I’m an engineering student, and this year I built a high-definition television, from scratch. But because of the broadcast flag, if I wanted to do that again after July 2005, that would be illegal. JV: How many people in the United States build their own sets? TT: Well, I’m talking about engineers. JV: Let’s say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can’t have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can’t do it that way. TT: Okay, let’s take a different example. Four years ago, you said that people who use Linux, which is about a million to two million people, who want to play DVDs, should get licensed DVD players and that those would be on the market soon. JV: And we have those now. TT: But today, you still cannot on the market actually buy a licensed DVD player for Linux. JV: I didn’t know that. TT: So the question is, do you think people who go to Blockbuster, they rent a movie, they bring it home, and they play it on Linux by circumventing the access control, are those people committing a moral transgression? JV: I do not believe that you have the right to override an encryption. Because if you have the right to do it, everybody can do it. For whatever benign reason you have, somebody else has got one even more benign. But once you let one person deal in a digital copy -- and I don’t have to tell you; you know far better than I that, unlike in analog, the ten thousandth copy is as pure as the original -- it is a big problem. So once you let the barriers down for your perfectly sensible reason, you gotta let it down for everybody. I don’t want to get into the definition of morality. I never said anything was immoral in what I was saying. I said it is wrong to take something that belongs to somebody else. TT: Indeed, but are you doing that when you rent a movie from Blockbuster and you watch it at home? ... I run Linux on my computer. There’s no product I can buy that’s licensed to watch [DVDs]. If I go to Blockbuster and rent a movie and watch it, am I a bad person? Is that bad? JV: No, you’re not a bad person. But you don’t have any right. TT: But I rented the movie. Why should it be illegal? JV: Well then, you have to get a machine that’s licensed to show it. TT: Here’s one of these machines; it’s just not licensed. [Winstein shows Valenti his six-line “qrpff” DVD descrambler.] TT: If you type that in, it’ll let you watch movies. JV: You designed this? TT: Yes. JV: Un-fucking-believable. TT: So the question is, if I just want to watch a movie--I rent it from Blockbuster--is that bad? JV: No, that’s not bad. TT: Then why should it be illegal? Rich Taylor, MPAA public affairs: It’s not. ... You could put it in a DVD player, you could play it on any computer licensed for it. JV: There’s lots of machines you can play it on. TT: None under Linux. There’s no licensed player under Linux. JV: But you’re trying to set your own standards. TT: No, you said four years ago that people under Linux should use one of these licensed players that would be available soon. They’re still not available -- it’s been four years. JV: Well why aren’t they available? I don’t know, because I don’t make Linux machines. Let me put it in my simple terms. If you take something that doesn’t belong to you, that’s wrong. Number two, if you design your own machine, you can’t fuss at people, because you’re one of just a few. How many Linux users are there? TT: About two million. JV: Well, I can’t believe there’s not any -- there must be a reason for... Let me find out about that. You bring up an interesting question -- I don’t know the answer to that... Well, you’re telling me a lot of things I don’t know. TT: Okay. Well, how can we have this dialogue? JV: Well, we’re having it right now. I want to try to find out the point you make on why are there no Linux licensed players. There must be a reason -- there has to be a reason. I don’t know. [Rich Taylor, a spokesman for the MPAA, later pointed to one company, Intervideo, that has a license to sell GNU/Linux DVD software, although the company does not actually sell a product that Linux users can purchase. Linux users who want to watch DVDs should “perhaps buy a DVD player instead,” Taylor said, or “write to Intervideo and others, encourage them that they’re the market,” he said. Will Linux users ever be able to view DVDs on their computers without breaking the law? “I’m sure that day is not far away,” Taylor said. A spokesman for Intervideo, Andy Marken, said the company’s product is only for embedded systems and that Intervideo has no plans to release a software player for end users.] Thanks, ಸುನೀಲ್ -- 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 51150580. Mobile: +91 80 36701931 "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 mayur at justice.com Thu Apr 29 18:31:31 2004 From: mayur at justice.com (Mayur Rangaswamy Suresh ) Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 06:01:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] Research Proposal Message-ID: <20040429060131.15405.h013.c014.wm@mail.justice.com.criticalpath.net> Dear All, Please find attached my research proposal, titled 'Policing Video' for the June Workshop. I'd greatly appreciate it if you could take the time off and go through it and give me any feed back. Thanks, Mayur _________________________________________________ FindLaw - Free Case Law, Jobs, Library, Community http://www.FindLaw.com Get your FREE @JUSTICE.COM email! http://mail.Justice.com -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Policing Video.doc Type: application/octet-stream Size: 26624 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040429/7efde431/attachment.obj From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 29 18:59:41 2004 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 06:29:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] Fwd: Abbas kiarostami's prediction Message-ID: <20040429132941.63366.qmail@web13604.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... 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