From sudhir75 at hotmail.com Sun May 2 19:16:37 2004 From: sudhir75 at hotmail.com (Sudhir) Date: Sun, 2 May 2004 14:46:37 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] Broadcasting Right and Copyright Message-ID: <002d01c4304b$e3a665b0$842b01a3@Sudhir> Dear all This is the second posting on my research into the Ten Sports case. This posting will focus on the legal status of broadcasting rights. Broadcasting has come to be regulated by two distinct legal regimes: [1] Copyright Law [2] Broadcast Regulation Law [3] The Right to Free Speech This posting will focus on the first of these regimes. Copyright law has, in the last few decades, come to accommodate a range of 'neighbouring rights' including broadcasting rights and performers rights. Section 37 of the Copyright Act, 1957 was introduced by amendment as late as 1995. This section grants to broadcasters the right to broadcast to the public by wire or wireless means for a period of 25 years. The Act is not clear about when such a broadcast right comes into being and the limits which may be set on this right - for example compulsory license under section 31 or fair use under section 52. Reporting around the Ten Sports case paid no attention to the copyright dimensions of the debate. It is not clear whether counsels before the court pressed arguments on these issues. In any event, a plain reading of the Act would indicate that TEN Sports had a watertight case built on their broadcasting rights claims and the courts opposite conclusion paid little or no attention to this legal position. Almost all the action around copyright and broadcasting is currently happening at the international level. There is presently a WIPO draft by the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) which is to be reviewed in June, 2004. James Love has written up a handy introduction to the key issues involved with this draft http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/dmca-activists/2003-10/msg00032.html In my next posting I will focus on the Broadcast Regulation Law. Best Sudhir Krishnaswamy (with Rajlakshmi's research assistance) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040502/5343484c/attachment.html From pramodleo at yahoo.co.uk Mon May 3 15:24:32 2004 From: pramodleo at yahoo.co.uk (Pramod.R) Date: Mon, 03 May 2004 15:24:32 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] a view on islam & copyright Message-ID: <409616D8.50104@yahoo.co.uk> www.ummah.com/islam/taqwapalace/copyrights1.pdf -Pramod From dev.gangjee at st-catherines.oxford.ac.uk Mon May 3 22:17:27 2004 From: dev.gangjee at st-catherines.oxford.ac.uk (Dev Gangjee) Date: Mon, 3 May 2004 17:47:27 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Aveda Indigenous TM Message-ID: <20040503164727.266142A0E7@webmail223.herald.ox.ac.uk> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040503/5a514353/attachment.pl From aarathi_c at hotmail.com Wed May 5 21:19:00 2004 From: aarathi_c at hotmail.com (Aarathi Chellappa) Date: Wed, 05 May 2004 15:49:00 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Third Posting on Understanding the Patenting of Traditional Knowledge Message-ID: Posted on 28th April on the Readers List. ___________________________________ I recently returned from a two week visit to Ahmedabad and Delhi where I got to interact with Prof. Anil Gupta, head of Sristi and National Innovation Foundation (NIF). This was an extremely useful interaction for me as Prof. Gupta has been dealing with issues relating to traditional knowledge for about 14 years now. I also got to understand the workings of Sristi and NIF and the moves undertaken by them to protect traditional knowledge. At Delhi I met with the team at the National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR) that is working on the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library. This is an initiative undertaken by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) along with certain other government entities, to prevent repeats of the turmeric situation. I also interacted with Ms. S. Vishalakshi and Mr. Dinesh Abrol at the National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS) who have worked on related areas such as biotechnology for several years now. In Bangalore, I plan to meet with the Centre for Ecological Sciences and the Foundation for the Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions, as they are also involved in efforts to document traditional knowledge. I have arrived at the overall scheme of the report and will attempt to have a draft ready by the next posting date. The First chapter will focus on what tradtitional knowledge is and why it should be protected. The next will deal with the patent system, how it evolved and when and why prior art became relevant. Thereafter I will discuss whether all traditional knowledge is prior art followed by whether certain patents that overlap on traditional knowledge were properly granted or not. Upon conclusion of this analysis, I shall examine strategies for protection of traditional knowledge. I think I have collected sufficient data, but believe that I need to write a draft report to see if there are any gaps. So ideally, by the next posting date, I should know what more needs to be done. All thoughts/insights/comments/critcism welcome, thanks, Aarathi. _________________________________________________________________ Marriage? http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/cgi-bin/bmclicks1.cgi?74 Join BharatMatrimony.com for free. From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Sun May 16 15:25:32 2004 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 15:25:32 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Third Posting on Understanding the Patenting of Traditional Knowledge In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040516095532.GB6429@nandini.home> Aarathi Chellappa said on Wed, May 05, 2004 at 03:49:00PM +0000,: > I have arrived at the overall scheme of the report and will attempt > to have a draft ready by the next posting date. The First chapter > will focus on what tradtitional knowledge is and why it should be > protected. The next will deal with the patent system, how it > evolved and when and why prior art became relevant. Thereafter I > will discuss whether all traditional knowledge is prior art > followed by whether certain patents that overlap on traditional > knowledge were properly granted or not. Upon conclusion of this > analysis, I shall examine strategies for protection of traditional > knowledge. Fine, but what about the fundamental assumption underlying the patent system - that all knowledge is documented, and its corollary, if no prior documentation is available, it is an invention? -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://paivakil.port5.com +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ From rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com Sat May 8 23:49:35 2004 From: rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com (Rajlakshmi Nesargi) Date: Sat, 8 May 2004 11:19:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] Third Posting on Understanding the Patenting of Traditional Knowledge Message-ID: <20040508181935.31284.qmail@web21601.mail.yahoo.com> Dear Mahesh, Well there are other factors that go into a patenting and not just documentation. Hence just documentation does not render knowledge non-patentable just because it is documented. Further it is better that traditional knowledge does not get any IPR protection and gets sui generis protection. Best Raj ===== "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!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover From sunil at mahiti.org Thu May 13 03:05:37 2004 From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham) Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 21:35:37 +0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] Outsourcing and the global IP "devaluation" Message-ID: <1084397736.753.9.camel@box> Dear Friends, Please note Microsoft has funded Alexis de Tocqueville Institution's research in the past. Thanks, Sunil http://www.adti.net/outop.htm http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/12/137209 -> for some very good comments Outsourcing and the global IP "devaluation" Ken Brown March 10, 2004 Copyright © Alexis de Tocqueville Institution In a widely quoted study, Baruch Lev of the Brookings Institution reported that in 1982, 62% of the market value of companies in the S & P 500 Index could be attributed to tangible assets, and only 38% to intangibles. By 1992, Lev noted, the ratio had essentially reversed: 32% of the assets for S & P companies were tangible, while 68% were intangible. A follow-up study by Brookings in 1998 reported that the asset ratio had shifted even more, with 85% of assets intangible, and only 15% tangible. While similar findings have been pointed to in hundreds of journals and reports, few observers have made the connection to the fact that the devaluation of U.S. intellectual property is directly linked to the widespread export of information technology jobs to foreign countries. Our haste to embrace globalization is one of the clearest culprits. In the name of globalization, the U.S. has relentlessly pursued business partnerships with countries that are home to relentless intellectual property theft. It almost seems as though the more evidence there is of piracy in a country, the more information technology business and investment we bring in. The relationship is simple: unpunished theft of intellectual property, coupled with IT and IP globalization, has exponentially increased the overall amount of IP theft. Simply put, the more there is to steal, the more will be stolen. While many would argue that intellectual property theft abroad does not have a significant impact on our economy, the math provides the grim truth. If 85% of the assets of the Standard Poor 500 shrinks by even 1% percentage point, it devalues U.S. corporations by billions of dollars. Second, while worldwide IP enforcement needs drastic improvement, the attitudes and activities of many U.S. corporations are equally as problematic. While most information technology firms insist that outsourcing exists solely because of reduced production costs abroad, we are not asking a very obvious question. Why are workers abroad able to produce our technology at all? The reason is because they know how to -- because they have our intellectual property. Generally speaking, when you talk to technology firms about IP and outsourcing, their response is either a) we know that they are stealing our intellectual property, but we have no choice but to do business there---and “hope” with our presence, piracy slows down b) we know that they are stealing our intellectual property, but it is not significantly affecting our bottom line or c) just because we show foreign companies and workers how to build our technology, it is not affecting our bottom line, because the intellectual property stays in the U.S. While the hubris of the first and second responses is predictable, the third response is more problematic than the first two. Today, intellectual property is not just patents, copyrights and trademarks, it is processes, techniques, methodology and talent; described by many experts as intellectual capital. Our “knowledge economy” and IP economy are very closely related, if not the same. Knowledge in the technology industry has a particularly significant value, especially when it is the result of billions of dollars in research and development. Furthermore, without intellectual property protection abroad, it is irrelevant whether the physical rights to intellectual property stay in the U.S. or not. It is patently false to state that when we outsource IT jobs overseas, we are not devaluing U.S. IP. When corporations transfer business secrets and processes overseas, foreign countries reap the reward of gaining highly profitable intellectual capital at a very low cost. Only five years ago, Congress was being aggressively lobbied by technology firms to allow more talent from overseas to emigrate to the U.S. to fill new tech jobs. In a weird reversal of fortune, American IT workers may end up having to leave the U.S. to pursue information technology careers, while foreign companies (using American ingenuity) may become their new employers. Many U.S. firms are not only devaluing intellectual property via outsourcing, but are also embracing business strategies to devalue (and if necessary, eradicate) their competitor’s intellectual property. Open source software, also described as free software, is the neutron bomb of IP. The strategy basically is this: businesses that make money selling hardware, selling programming services, selling hardware integration, etc. do not like being beholden to the software companies. In addition, they can increase products sales if accompanying or required software is free. So, major U.S. corporations are heavily investing in developing a widely available “free software inventory” that is open to anyone to use or customize at will. If customers only want to use free software, they will buy more hardware and services because there is no additional cost for software. Moreover, with no software costs, even hardware development, etc. becomes even cheaper. Active international campaigns (many sponsored by U.S. companies) have skyrocketed free software adoption around the world. However, the open source strategy is a triple-edge sword. First, most free software such as Linux, (the most popular because of its operating system capability), comes with a license that dictates that any all development of the product (which would have been valuable intellectual property) becomes community property and must subsequently become free as well. Second, Linux initiatives have enabled foreign-based information technology firms with zero IP costs and cheap labor to easily compete with U.S. software companies. While some may argue that Linux only impact the business software sector, BSA reports that the business market for software is over $160 billion. Third, and even more serious, these initiatives are continually pushing U.S. intellectual property asset values downward. The irony is that U.S. corporations with Linux initiatives believe that the IT industry can survive without intellectual property. Open Source activists that want to see Linux succeed argue that eventually, they want all intellectual property protection to end, including patents and trademarks. The bottom line is this: a non-IP future means that all companies in the Baruch Lev study go to from 85% to 0% in intangible asset value. In conclusion, while it is debatable whether outsourcing can be described as just another business solution or the hemorrhaging of the IT industry, downward pressure on intellectual property is having a serious impact upon the information technology sector and the entire U.S. economy. Instead of asking how much harm is this having on our economy, we should really be asking how much longer can we continually export the U.S. IP economy to every (and any) global competitor at no cost? Unless intellectual property assets are better protected, we will soon see information technology firms resorting to draconian measures even worse than outsourcing. Ken Brown is president of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution and director of its technology programs. He is the author of numerous studies on intellectual property rights, telecommunications, and trade. View a version of this article at: www.darwinmag.com 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 paivakil at yahoo.co.in Wed May 12 22:40:05 2004 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 22:40:05 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Outsourcing and the global IP "devaluation" In-Reply-To: <1084397736.753.9.camel@box> References: <1084397736.753.9.camel@box> Message-ID: <20040512171005.GA2783@nandini.home> Sunil Abraham said on Wed, May 12, 2004 at 09:35:37PM +0000,: > Please note Microsoft has funded Alexis de Tocqueville Institution's > research in the past. > [snip] > Ken Brown > March 10, 2004 IIRC (I sometimes have a bad memory), the earlier study was conducted by this particular gentleman, and this study was available for free of cost download. (I may have the free version somewhere in my archives). Once the community debunked his theories with solid reasons, the report was available only for a fee. -- "Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty" From BaxiUpendra at aol.com Wed May 5 23:15:58 2004 From: BaxiUpendra at aol.com (BaxiUpendra at aol.com) Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 13:45:58 EDT Subject: [Commons-Law] Third Posting on Understanding the Patenting of Traditional... Message-ID: <78.561dce99.2dca8256@aol.com> Dear Aarathi, Your report sounds most exciting. Concerning the last part of the report, the work done by the Third World Network and the Tunis Model Code on Protection of Folklore may be some of use (some of us worked on this decades ago; presumably available at the WIPO site). Upen Professor of Law University of Warwick Coventry CV4 7AL Ph: 02476523099 Fax 02476524105 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040505/3081bf2d/attachment.html From pramodleo at yahoo.co.uk Fri May 14 11:42:11 2004 From: pramodleo at yahoo.co.uk (Pramod.R) Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 11:42:11 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Fwd: Wizards of OS 3. The Future of the Digital Commons Message-ID: <40A4633B.3090306@yahoo.co.uk> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [blug-announce] Digest Number 425 Date: 14 May 2004 05:26:58 -0000 From: linux-bangalore at yahoogroups.com Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 23:58:21 +0530 (IST) From: Atul Chitnis Subject: Wizards of OS 3. The Future of the Digital Commons > 10-12 June Wizards of OS 3 The Future of the Digital Commons June 10 - 12, 2004 Berlin Congress Center http://wizards-of-os.org/ In four weeks, the international conference Wizards of OS 3 will be held in the Berliner Congress Center. For three days, 80 specialists from 23 countries will be considering and exchanging views on the future of our digital commons. Programmers, artists, scientists and activists will present their projects, conduct workshops and discuss with participants ways in which free software, free content, free networks and open archives can be productively applied towards a new order of knowledge. WOS 3 will present examples of successful projects which share this aim, examples that may inspire emulation and further development, such as Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, and the Simputer, with its free hardware design. Just as our natural environment survives only due to the efforts of a now powerful movement, our digital environment needs similar protection from privatization. Addressing the global challenge of a united movement for the freedom of knowledge will be, among others, Lawrence Lessig, founder of the Creative Commons initiative, Charlotte Hess, commons researcher, and Eben Moglen, professor of law and author of the GPL. Program: http://www.wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=835&L=3 Registration: http://www.wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=91&L=3 From svaz2000 at hotmail.com Wed May 5 21:55:30 2004 From: svaz2000 at hotmail.com (Savio Vaz) Date: Wed, 05 May 2004 12:25:30 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] Open letter to Goan musicians... Message-ID: I read your posting from Aug 2002 , Where ate you at ? I am in the US and share your ideas too. Has anything been done yet?? Savio ___________________________________________________________ Sent by ePrompter, the premier email notification software. Free download at http://www.ePrompter.com. _________________________________________________________________ Check out the coupons and bargains on MSN Offers! http://youroffers.msn.com From sudhir75 at hotmail.com Sun May 9 05:17:28 2004 From: sudhir75 at hotmail.com (Sudhir) Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 00:47:28 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] WIPO Broadcast Treaty - Request for assistance in India Message-ID: <002f01c43556$d2ab2e70$842b01a3@Sudhir> ============================================== UNION FOR THE PUBLIC DOMAIN SURVEY OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES REGARDING THE WIPO BROADCASTING TREATY The free exchange of knowledge and information enabled by the public domain is being threatened by proposals in many international forums, including the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). One of the major difficulties of protecting the public domain against these threats is that the positions of national representatives in these international forums are unknown, even to citizens of the country they represent. We want to change that. This questionnaire is being used by volunteers to collect information about national positions on the proposed WIPO Broadcasting Treaty. The results you collect will be posted on the Web so that citizens in your country and around the world can act appropriately to protect the public domain. The proposed WIPO Broadcasting Treaty expands and gives new privileges to transmitters of information. Rights that are normally granted to creators and performers would be given to organizations that merely transmit works and performances--even if those works are in the public domain, or if those works' creators wish to have the works distributed without restriction. (For more information see Ernest Miller's excellent analysis at http://www.corante.com/importance/archives/002925.html, and Edward Felten's blog at http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000571.html.) It is important that we find out how countries stand on this proposed expansion of rights. To find out where national government officials stand you can e-mail this questionnaire to them for a written response, or you can interview the officials over the phone and record their answers. There is not yet an easy way to find out who is representing your country at WIPO. You can start the search by scouring the web, and then by calling the country's copyright or trade office. As volunteers collect contact information we will make it available so that the process is easier the next time around. Time is of the essence, so if one method of getting answers isn't working, try another. It may take some work to find someone who is willing to answer the survey, but your persistence will pay off by strengthening our efforts to protect the public domain and the free exchange of knowledge and information. If you are collecting information, please be sure to contact the coordinator of the survey, survey at public-domain.org, so that we can keep track of what countries we have covered. Also make sure you record the contact information of the government officials with whom you interact, and the results of your interaction, even if they were negative. This way we can be more efficient next time we administer a survey. And if you know anyone else who would be interested in helping out, please ask them to download the survey at http://www.public-domain.org/?q=node/view/30 and to contact survey at public-domain.org. Thank you for all of your help! Information about person administering survey --------------------------------------------- Name: E-mail address: Country surveyed: Country of residence: Record of Interactions with Government Officials [please duplicate this section if you have more than one interaction] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Name of official: Office: Position: Contact info (phone, fax, e-mail, postal address): Description of interaction (for example, gave all answers; gave some answers; helpful and friendly, but doesn't work on this issue, etc): QUESTIONS FOR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS Consideration Process and Timing -------------------------------- Should WIPO schedule a diplomatic conference on the proposed WIPO Broadcast Treaty? Length of Powers ---------------- Should the proposed Treaty grant 50 years of exclusive broadcasting rights, as proposed by some, or retain the 20 year term in TRIPS and the 1961 Rome Convention covering broadcasters' rights, as proposed by Singapore? Scope of Powers --------------- Should the Treaty apply only to traditional wireless broadcasting; or should the Treaty be extended to transmissions over wired cable networks as proposed in Article 2(c)? Should the Treaty be extended to apply to "webcasting", meaning making accessible images and/or sounds over computer networks, as proposed in Alternative C, Article 2(g)? If the Treaty includes a provision on webcasting, what is the appropriate definition of webcasting? Would you support an alternative definition to that proposed in Alternative C, Article 2(g)? The current draft covers transmissions or the "making accessible" of "sounds or of images or of images and and sounds or of the representations thereof" (Definitions, Article 2.) As currently drafted, do you believe that the proposed Treaty will cover all types of content that is broadcast, including text, and other data? Would you support extending the Treaty only so far as to cover motion pictures and or sounds, but excluding text and other data? Nature of Broadcasters' Powers ------------------------------ Should the Treaty simply provide broadcasters with the right to prohibit or authorize fixations of broadcasts (as provided in Article 13 of the Rome Convention and Article 8 of the proposed Treaty), or go further, by granting the following additional rights? * the right to authorize or prohibit distribution to the public of original and reproductions of fixations of a broadcast, as provided under Article 10; * the right to authorize deferred transmission of broadcasts after fixation as provided under Article 11; * the right to authorize or prohibit the making available of broadcasts from fixations, as provided under Article 12 of the proposed Treaty? Should the broadcast organization have the power to restrict the fixation or redistribution of broadcasts of materials that are in the public domain? Should the Treaty allow Contracting Parties to make explicit exceptions for certain purposes, like the four purposes currently recognized under Article 14 of the Rome Convention ((a) private use; (b) use of short excerpts for reporting of current events: (c) ephemeral fixation by own facilities for use in own broadcasts; and (d) sole purpose teaching and scientific research)? What other legitimate exceptions should the Treaty permit to preserve the existing balance between various types of holders of rights in content and users and viewers of that content? Do you support the exceptions as currently drafted in Article 15 of the proposed Treaty? Legal Sanctions for circumventing technological protection on broadcasts ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Do you support the inclusion of the provisions in Articles 16 and 17 which require Treaty parties to ban the circumvention of technological protection measures added to signals by broadcasters, and protection for technologically protected content? Do you support a further ban on the importation, sale or making available of devices capable of assisting to decrypt an encrypted program-carrying signal, such as a satellite signal, as proposed in Alternative V, Article 16(2) of the proposed Treaty? Or do you believe existing copyright law as applied to the underlying work being broadcast under Articles 11 - 12 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty and Articles 18 - 19 of the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty is sufficient. --------------------------------- Sudhir Krishnaswamy College Teaching Fellow in Law Pembroke College Oxford OX1 1DW http://openlawsarai.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040509/acd9b1b4/attachment.html From karim at sarai.net Mon May 17 18:46:45 2004 From: karim at sarai.net (Aniruddha Shankar) Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 18:46:45 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] FLOSS "Concept Booklet":Contributions/Criticism/Addenda solicited Message-ID: <40A8BB3D.4060104@sarai.net> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hello. I work in a non-profit organisation (www.sarai.net) that is deeply involved in and committed to Free/Libre/Open Source Software. We're in the process of creating and publishing a Concept Booklet on Free/Libre/Open Source Software that will, hopefully, be accessible even to people with an extremely limited understanding of computers and absolutely no knowledge of open source/free/libre software. In collabroation with one such layperson, we created a set of questions on free software and are in the process of generating the answers and the additional content for the concept booklet. We'd be thrilled if you people would contribute as many answers as you can to the questions that we have outlined below. Of course, please feel free to comment on the existing questions and to make additions to them. All contributions will be gratefully acknowledged. The booklet will be published under the Creative Commons/Share Alike License and distributed free or at a nominal cost. We will, of course, be providing a full version online, including print-quality PDFs. This call for contributions from the wider community interested in free/libre/open source software is an effort to extend the methodology used in creating free software into the arena of collaborative publishing. All contributions, no matter how small, trivial or obvious they might seem, are extremely valuable to us. Please, do take the time to read the questions and contribute, if possible. I apologise to those who are subscribed to two or more of the lists to which this is posted for the crosspost. Please feel free to forward this email to people or entities that you feel might be helpful. Cheers, Aniruddha Shankar Intro / Concept: What is free software? Well tell me what's not " free" about other kinds of software? So " free" means that I don't have to spend any money then? How is Free Software actually made? So how is this different from the production of other kinds of software? So the term Free Software is a legal definition then? What do you mean by " Copyleft" ? What's wrong with copyright? How is this different? Is this Copyleft against the law? What does GNU GPL stand for? If this software is free as you say then why do we need legislation to protect it? What other licenses exist to protect Free Software? Okay so I can see that Free Software is legal but surely if I duplicate something that means that someone is losing out somewhere along the way? History of F.S: When did this whole Free Software thing start? How long have people been using it for? So Free Software actually pre-dates Microsoft? So are you saying that in some ways the history of Free Software and the internet run parallel to one another? Okay, but now what is Linux? When did that come about? So how this changed the development of software in general? Who's this Stallman character then? Where does he fit into the picture? How do you see the future development of Free Software? Production Methodology: How is Free Software actually made? What kinds of people make Free Software? But I still don't understand why anyone would want to give away their work for free? What's in it for them!? What do you mean by a Digital Commons? In what ways could I benefit from involving myself in this Digital Commons? Arguments for using F.S: I'm still not convinced. Surely a big computer company knows best when it comes to designing software? Why would I want to use software designed by an amateur? But what about bugs? Surely Free Software is more likely to be virus prone? So you're saying that Free Software actually evolves at a faster pace than closed software? Software that can be modified actually runs better than closed software then? Free Software is only something used by computer enthusiasts, right? Have any established organizations actually used Free Software to their advantage? Personal Relationship to F.S: What kinds of problems might I expect to encounter using F.S? Okay but why would I want to modify my software anyway? Look, I'm no computer whiz! Isn't it easier for me to just use packaged software? Who do I turn to when something goes wrong? But how do I know I can trust someone not linked to a big company that has a reputation to uphold? Won't this cost me more than just calling someone out through the help-line of an established computer company? Well what do I have to lose from using Free Software? Okay so how would I begin to install Free Software on my machine? Glossary: - -- Aniruddha 'Karim' Shankar The Sarai Programme Key ID: 0xA037AD2B Public Key Fingerprint: 9167 C0E7 A679 0906 7E47 83C0 8499 2B77 A037 AD2B To get my public key, search http://pgp.mit.edu for my email id. To directly import my key into your keyring, run gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys A037AD2B . -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFAqLs6hJkrd6A3rSsRAnM/AJ97T14ztuABNlWolokpoF6koxeOcgCgvLGZ z59adLmHeP6FoXeah3OlmJ0= =Imd+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From sm_law at rediffmail.com Sat May 15 00:10:44 2004 From: sm_law at rediffmail.com (Sudip Mahapatra) Date: 14 May 2004 18:40:44 -0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] (no subject) Message-ID: <20040514184044.31604.qmail@webmail35.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040514/8f2c3034/attachment.html -------------- next part --------------  hello our research proposal sudip and ram -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Ipr.doc Type: application/msword Size: 25600 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040514/8f2c3034/attachment.doc -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Ipr.doc Type: application/msword Size: 25600 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040514/8f2c3034/attachment-0001.doc From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Mon May 17 23:52:53 2004 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 11:22:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] IP section in Infochangeindia.org Message-ID: <20040517182253.94217.qmail@web13604.mail.yahoo.com> Hi all as a part of the Sarai-ALF research on intellectual Property, we have been attempting to make a few critical interventions in the public debate. Towards that end , we have (primarily Vishwas Deviah) contributed a few articles which act as critical introductions to some of the existing conflicts in IP. They are available on www.infochangeindia.org Thanks to Ammu Joseph who did a great job helping us edit out the legalese and other un-understandables. The list of articles are available below Lawrence Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price. http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/ -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Ammu Joseph Subject: The IPR section is up on Infochangeindia Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 22:58:30 +0530 Size: 6673 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040517/46fddc2e/attachment.mht From karim at sarai.net Thu May 20 12:20:57 2004 From: karim at sarai.net (Aniruddha Shankar) Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 12:20:57 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] FLOSS "Concept Booklet" WIKI! In-Reply-To: <40A8BB3D.4060104@sarai.net> References: <40A8BB3D.4060104@sarai.net> Message-ID: <40AC5551.7000100@sarai.net> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The FLOSS Concept Booklet Wiki is online at http://wikibooks.org/wiki/FLOSS_Concept_Booklet For those who are not exactly clear on what a wiki is, it's a collaborative Web site comprised of the collective work of many authors. Similar to a blog in structure and logic, a wiki allows anyone to easily edit, delete or modify content that has been placed there. This method of working, apart from being a literal application of the collaborative opensource methodology will allow many many more people than would otherwise be possible to contribute. The more the people who read, comment and modify, the denser will be this resource base, so please, people, contribute! The original introduction to the FLOSS Concept Booklet that I had posted in my earlier mail is appended with the appropriate modifications: Hello. I work in a non-profit organisation (www.sarai.net) that is deeply involved in and committed to Free/Libre/Open Source Software. We're in the process of creating and publishing a Concept Booklet on Free/Libre/Open Source Software that will, hopefully, be accessible even to people with an extremely limited understanding of computers and absolutely no knowledge of open source/free/libre software. In collaboration with one such layperson, we created a set of questions on FLOSS and are in the process of generating the answers and the additional content for the concept booklet. We'd be thrilled if you people would contribute as many answers as you can to the questions that are outlined in the wiki. Of course, please feel free to comment on the existing questions and to make additions to them. All contributions will be gratefully acknowledged. The booklet will either be published under the Creative Commons/Share Alike License or the GNU Free Documentation License and distributed free or at a nominal cost. We will, of course, be providing a full version online, including print-quality PDFs. This call for contributions from the wider community interested in free/libre/open source software is an effort to extend the methodology used in creating free software into the arena of collaborative publishing. All contributions, no matter how small, trivial or they might seem, are extremely valuable to us. Please, do take the time to read the questions and contribute, if possible. I apologise to those who are subscribed to two or more of the lists to which this is posted for the crosspost. Please feel free to forward this email to people or entities that you feel might be helpful. cheers, - -- Aniruddha 'Karim' Shankar The Sarai Programme Key ID: 0xA037AD2B Public Key Fingerprint: 9167 C0E7 A679 0906 7E47 83C0 8499 2B77 A037 AD2B To get my public key, search http://pgp.mit.edu for my email id. To directly import my key into your keyring, run gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys A037AD2B . -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFArFVNhJkrd6A3rSsRAlgZAKC4yee13L3tCTb/k3n/6XP+JbcRBgCgnK4o HgX6ZHf4OczksDK0DEaX8BY= =3fIN -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Fri May 21 00:22:08 2004 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 11:52:08 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] some ideas on licensing for documentary film makers Message-ID: <20040520185208.2197.qmail@web13603.mail.yahoo.com> Hi all I just wanted to follow up on Fred Noronha�s posting which came on Vikalp a few days ago with a few thoughts and ideas. Fred suggested that it would be great to start thinking of getting documentary film makers to start licensing their works under the principles of an open content licensing, and I just wanted to add a few more ideas and suggestions to build up a case for why this might be a great idea. But first a small personal statement, when I was in law school, I had great aspirations of wanting to be a film maker , and an FTTI type friend told me that the best place to start was to watch a lot of foreign films and documentaries, so I did that rather dutifully and spent many hours when I should have been reading corporate law, watching documentaries. My fondest memory of my placement in Mumbai with a law firm was when we took off to TISS and watched Anjali and jayashankar�s film on Yeravada . I gave up on the idea of becoming a film maker after we finally did do a documentary on law school but by then the bug had bitten and I had fallen in love with cinema and the documentary form as well. And yeah I think watching docus has also made me a better lawyer than I would have been if I read ramiaya on the companies act. So if I have written this rather longish email about why docu film makers should start thinking about open content licenses, it is with a sense of repaying a debt. But firstly a few clarifications, what does an open content / creative commons license mean? Open content licenses have basically been inspired by the free software movement, where they try to reverse the principles of copyright to build a more vibrant public domain of materials which can be used by people. Copyright grants the author of a work an exclusive right to copy, distribute, create adaptations etc of his/ her work. Any person using any material without the permission of the author or without paying royalty is presumed to be infringing the exclusive copyright of the author of the work. While copyright was initially supposed to be a means of balancing between providing incentives for authors and ensuring that works circulate in the public domain, over the past few decades, this balance has been completed tilted in favour of the owners of copyright, and increasingly one sees the use of copyright to supplement restrictions on freedom of speech and expression ( A quick example: Alice Randall, an African American author wrote a rewriting of Gone with the wind from the perspective of Scarlett O Hara�s mullato half sister. The publishers claimed that this was an infringement of copyright and obtained an injunction against the publication of the book. Thankfully in this case the court of appeal then overturned the injunction). Similarly copyright licensing makes the acquisition or use of a pre existing work very very expensive, and lets hope that we don�t go down the US route where you have to take a hundred copyright permission before you use any music, clip etc while making your own film. Think about your own experiences, if you had to pay for every time you wanted to use a clip or a song,, �how much would that add to your overheads? A cautionary take: In 1990 Jon Else, an American documentary filmmaker was working on a documentary about Wagner�s Ring Cycle. The focus was stagehands at the San Francisco Opera. Stagehands are a particularly funny and colorful element of an opera. During a show, they hang out below the stage in the grips� lounge and in the lighting loft. They make a perfect contrast to the art on the stage. During one of the performances, Else was shooting some stagehands playing checkers. In one corner of the room was a television set. Playing on the television set, while the stagehands played checkers and the opera company played Wagner, was The Simpsons. Else judgethought this shot would be great to use and he went ahead and shot it, he then decide to obtain permission form the owners of the copyright in the simpsons to use the four second clip. While Matt Groening, the creator did not have a problem, he did not own the copyright, but Gracie films, the owner demanded that he pay them $ 10,000 for the use of the four seconds. He obviously could not afford to pay them. He could have gone ahead and used the clip, and it ouwld have fallen under his fair use right to do so, but this was too risky given that Elsie films had a record of pursuing copyright infringement cases, and the average costs of defending a law suit in the US is $ 250,000. The situation in the US is pretty bleak now, and any documentary film maker submitting a film to a broadcast organization has get copyright clearances for all materials used, otherwise they refuse to broadcast the film. This sounds almost like the Indian scenario of obtaining the censor certioficate before broadcast. Anyway as a response to the stifling copyright regime, the free software movement began, and what it did was that it created something called the GNU General Public License. This license instead of denying people access or restricting their rights over a work made software available for all with the freedom to copy, modify, redistribute etc. It is if course important to remember that the word free here refers to freedom, and not to price. The only condition was that if someone created something new out of a free software , then that work would also have to be licensed on the same terms and conditions, namely that it could not be taken outside the public domain. The movement has now spread to other domains of cultural production and the creative commons is the best example of how this idea is being used with respect to movies, music, documentaries, literature etc etc. So why should documentary film makers start taking the free software movement seriously and think about similar licensing models for their works, as well as the very idea of collaborative production for the future. 1. Distribution- one of the biggest problems faced by documentary film makers in India has been the question of circulation and distribution, and this is an issue which has been discussed in a number of meetings as well as on this list. If the work were available freely (again note this does not mean that you cant charge for the documentary, but means that a person who has bought a copy may make a copy and distribute it to others), there would a far greates circulation of documentaries amongst other film makers, students, activists, scholars and general public. It is a fact that currently if you want to access documentaries, then you either have to approach the film maker or approach an NGO which keeps documentaries. Greater availability will ensure greater distribution and subsequently promote documentary film watching etc 2. I am sure that most documentary film makers do not have a hassle if people circulate their work, but it is important to remember that unless you state explicitly that people have a right to do so, to use your work etc it is presumed that they do not have a right to do so. In that sense Copyright by default applies to your work, which is why it is important to start thinking in terms of a pro active licensing policy that allows people to use your work 3. There may be one or two immediate concerns that arise, if I make my work available, isn�t there a danger that someone will use my materials and pass it off as their own work. By licensing under a open content license you do not waive all your rights as the author of the work, and it is really up to you to determine the nature of the usage involved, For instance you could have a license that allows the work only to be copied for non profit purposes, so I cant make a hundred copies of your work and then start selling the work for profit. Similarly by licensing under an open content license, you do not loose your other rights, such as the right to be identified as the author of the work etc. You may allow or not allow someone to modify the work or use significant portions. 4. More importantly is the fact that most documentary film makers do not live off royalty in any case. Their films are either commissioned or they earn some money from various prizes, invitations etc So the fear of the loss of revenue cannot be a very serious one. But apart form the fare of loss of revenue from the film makers part is the more important issue that when a film maker is commissioned to make a film, it is important to ask the question as to where that money comes form, and if the money comes from public finding, for instance in the case of PSBT, there should be no reason why the film that is made from public money should then become the private property of an individual film maker. Lets assume that the money that is provided for the film is not that great and cannot be measured in terms of the efforts that the film maker has put in, it is important to acknowledge that the film maker still benefits in terms of experience, credits, recognition, future assignments etc. 5. The collaborative nature of film making: Copyright�s myth of the individual creator genius is perhaps more violently expressed in film making. Film making as we all know is perhaps one of the most collaborative of the arts, and the amount of diverse labour that goes into it is incredible , and yet for the purposes of copyright, the author of the film is considered to be a single individual, namely the producer of the film. To its credit, the system of credits in film making, especially in feature film still recognizes this process of joint authorship. Another issue of course is to recognize the hundred and thousands of influences, inspirations etc that have gone into our own films. We need to work beyond the assumed myths of copyright law, and develop alternative practices that recognize the multiplicity that goes into the making of a film. When we extend this principle to the making of films, we can start thinking in terms of the great benefit that making films, footage available has on film making itself. I think at this point we really need to laud the efforts taken by a few documentary film makers post Gujarat, in the form of the shared footage project. Given that we are a small community it is important to start thinking in terms of the benefits of collaboration, vast amounts of footage available to be used etc. 6. If copyright is increasingly threatening creativity, then one of the means of protecting this creativity is by ensuring that we take pro active steps that build towards an ethic of the public domain in our own practices as well. One thing is sure the digital revolution has arrived, and you have more and more people from a non film making background who want to experiment with films, use it in the course of their work etc. In that sense media/ medium is no longer external to any of our practices, and at some level we all have to , whether we are academics or lawyers or activists, start thinking of ourselves as media professionals as well. And the great thing that digital media has done is that it has enabled almost any person to become a low cost production studio, you have a decent computer, and you can mix and match and edit your own stuff. Tinkering cultures are a critical part of the way we are learning the grammar of new media, for instance at ALF, we are currently bringing out a CD on queering bollywood which brings together clips of subversive queer readings of Bollywood, three years ago we wold not have imagined orselves doing it. Two students at the law school (Warisha and Vinay) have made their own films, one on Kashmir and one on Pakistan. I think we are living in very interesting times as far as democratic media is concerned, and we cant allow the freedom provided by technology to get curbed through a content barrier that arose in the 18th century as copyright 7. Finally most documentary film makers would identify themselves as being against the neoliberal global order, important to start realizing that intellectual property is one of the key pillars upon which this neo liberal order is built, and important to incorporate the subjects of out film into our own practices as well. It does sound a little ironic to make a film on protests against the hegemonic order of the WTO, and then claim strong protection for your own film. Anyway this mail has gone long enough, for those of you who have actually reached till here, thanks for the patience, many more ideas but will save that for the next mail Lawrence __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Domains � Claim yours for only $14.70/year http://smallbusiness.promotions.yahoo.com/offer From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Fri May 21 00:55:27 2004 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 00:55:27 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] some ideas on licensing for documentary film makers In-Reply-To: <20040520185208.2197.qmail@web13603.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040520185208.2197.qmail@web13603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040520192527.GA5132@nandini.home> Lawrence Liang said on Thu, May 20, 2004 at 11:52:08AM -0700,: > 3. There may be one or two immediate concerns that arise, if I make > my work available, isn?t there a danger that someone will use my > materials and pass it off as their own work. This risk exists, regardless of the license under which you distribute your work. > You may allow or not allow someone to modify the work or use > significant portions. Precisely. And apart from the Open Content Licenses, the GNU Free Documentation license, is one such license, which insists on certain parts of a work not being varied. (for text of the license, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html) IMHO, the GNU licenses have better `copyleft' qualities, which prevent `downstream' distributors from impeding the rights they received. -- "Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty" From karim at sarai.net Fri May 21 12:55:17 2004 From: karim at sarai.net (Aniruddha Shankar) Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 12:55:17 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Comparison of Microsoft Windows XP EULA & the GPL Message-ID: <40ADAEDD.9010000@sarai.net> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Was researching for the FLOSS Concept Booklet and found this. Very thorough and quite good, I thought. Central to this is the examination of the concept of the user as a producer and as an actor in the GPL as contrasted with the concept of the user in the EULA - someone whose freedom is very very limited. http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net/docs/comparing_the_gpl_to_eula.html A *much* more readable pdf version is at http://www.cybersource.com.au/cyber/about/comparing_the_gpl_to_eula.pdf - -- Aniruddha 'Karim' Shankar The Sarai Programme Key ID: 0xA037AD2B Public Key Fingerprint: 9167 C0E7 A679 0906 7E47 83C0 8499 2B77 A037 AD2B To get my public key, search http://pgp.mit.edu for my email id. To directly import my key into your keyring, run gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys A037AD2B . -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFAra7bhJkrd6A3rSsRAh/aAKCxxWPK3SfIG+wb4BXF8UUH3xc94QCfZAAD Rc4xZojom6SFMP8BUhtAFeg= =Iqty -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From patrice at xs4all.nl Tue May 25 17:40:57 2004 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 14:10:57 +0200 Subject: [Commons-Law] Outsourcing and the global IP "devaluation" In-Reply-To: <1084397736.753.9.camel@box> References: <1084397736.753.9.camel@box> Message-ID: <20040525121057.GB18165@xs4all.nl> This article provides a very nice background to a line of reasoning becoming increasingly vocal (but not necessarily succesful): 'free' is not market conform, which is already bad enough ("if the market is the law, than anything that falls outside of the market is unlawful" - Alain Minc), but it is also deeply un-American. Do I hear someone whispering 'terrorism' here?.... On Wed, May 12, 2004 at 09:35:37PM +0000, Sunil Abraham wrote: > Dear Friends, > > Please note Microsoft has funded Alexis de Tocqueville Institution's > research in the past. > > Thanks, > > Sunil > > > http://www.adti.net/outop.htm > http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/12/137209 -> for some very good > comments > > Outsourcing and the global IP "devaluation" > Ken Brown > March 10, 2004 > Copyright ?? Alexis de Tocqueville Institution > From fred at bytesforall.org Sun May 23 04:03:12 2004 From: fred at bytesforall.org (Frederick Noronha (FN)) Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 04:03:12 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: [vikalp] some ideas on licensing for documentary film makers In-Reply-To: <20040522174533.29338.qmail@web60503.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040522174533.29338.qmail@web60503.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 22 May 2004, miriam chandy wrote: > I agree with Fred Norohna and Lawrence Liang's case > for a licensing system. Documentaries in India are yet > to grow into a movement, available to the larger > public domain. The need of the hour is to make these > documentaries accessible... > The open content licensing system sounds promising, > is democratic and could be the catalyst for a larger > documentary movement... > > warm regards > miriam Lawrency Liang has made a very articulate case. I would like to narrate how we journalists in Goa managed to put together a 21-chapter e-book (collaboratively written by 20 journalists, each contributing one chapter each) under the creative commons license. But since it is past 3:45 am, I'll leave that story for another day. It was put out for free download, and we plan to print the book. We will also put out the book in a 'copyleft' format, since earning profits isn't our primary goal -- in any case, even if we wanted to earn profits, we're hardly likely to get there... as is the fate with many small players in this copyrights business. My view is that alternate content and perspectives needs to have alternate channels of distribution. The 'all rights reserved' model is quite useful for mega-corporations, but not for the rest of us. I do agree that, while we try to find alternative forms of distribution, we also need to look at alternative forms of revenue earning. This would be a fear and concern for independent film-makers, even if the 'copyright' model is inefficient at earning both revenues and audiences anyway. The Free Software model (free = freedom, not necessarily zero cost) has done a fascinating job in making a superb product (even if Microsoft still rules the marketplace) and making it accessible to all. At the same time, the interest of the person working on the code has also been taken care of. In the case of alternative documentary films -- where maximisation of profit is not the prime motive behind the creative impulse -- the interest of building up a alternative revenue model needs to be thought about too. http://www.creativecommons.org gives a whole lot of possiblities in between the 'all rights reserved' model and the 'no rights reserved' option. One possibility that seems to make sense is to allow copying and screenings for non-profit events where no entry-fee whatsoever is levied, while having a different set of rules for commercial and institutional screenings. It also might help if the foreign market earnings are tapped to cross-subsidise free distribution among Indian non-commercial and alternative audiences. There are a lot of options for each filmmaker to choose from. Incidentally, below is a response sent in from a friend's friend in Holland, when asked about the screening of alternative Indian documentary there. Wonder if VIKALP could travel as a package too? FN - - - - - - > There are four organisations I can think of that could be relevant for > you, when you wish to promote Indian documentary films. > 1. One is the Amsterdam based IDFA Festival, the international > documentary festival that every November brings hundreds of doc. makers > to the city to show their work, and sell their films. See Idfa.nl for > more info. > 2. Secondly, you may possibly also wish to contact the Filmmuseum > (www.filmmuseum.nl), that also sometimes has programmes around > specific themes - Indian movies have been shown there as well. > 3. The public broadcasters like NPS occasionally pay attention to > movies of this kind. > 4. Last but not least - commercial cinema's like Pathe are showing > Hindi movies these days, as in the big cities, there are people with > Surinamese origins that like to see them. But mostly, they go for the > blockbusters. Not sure if that is the info you were looking for, just > let me know Kind regards MOnique --------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa, India f r e d @ b y t e s f o r a l l . o r g Ph 832.2409490 / 832.2409783 Cell 9822 122436 Phone calls: preferably from 1300 to 0500 (IST) Try landlines is mobile is temporarily unavailable JUST OUT: Goa photos http://www.goa-world.com/fotofolio --------------------------------------------------------- From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Tue May 25 21:02:48 2004 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 21:02:48 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: [vikalp] some ideas on licensing for documentary film makers In-Reply-To: References: <20040522174533.29338.qmail@web60503.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <40B36720.8090207@yahoo.co.in> Frederick Noronha (NF) wrote: > My view is that alternate content and perspectives needs to have > alternate channels of distribution. The 'all rights reserved' model > is quite useful for mega-corporations, but not for the rest of us. But, the whole point underlying copyleft is that *all* knowledge should be freely accessible. The present regime for the group of disparate rights, called IPR is slowly developing into a *chaturvarnya* of different kind. Remember, in that system, it was the people with education and therefore, *control* who called the shots in the society. Do not confine the concept to `alternate' thinking. > (even if Microsoft still rules the marketplace) Sez who? I have seen people waiting for 10 days for the convenience of the local GNU/Linux `Guru' to set up a lightning hit server. Definitely, the `guru' ruled the day here. From ahmed_shakeb at vsnl.net Wed May 26 04:31:53 2004 From: ahmed_shakeb at vsnl.net (shakeb ahmed) Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 07:01:53 +0800 Subject: [Commons-Law] [Reader-list] Subject: First Posting. Research Abstract - Locally Message-ID: <200405252301.i4PN1rkB014252@imsmq06.netvigator.com> RESEARCH ABSTRACT: LOCALLY PRODUCED MEDIA AND ASSOCIATED PRACTICES IN JAMIA NAGAR, AND THE SATELLITE COLONIES Debates around the influence of mass media in production of public and private meanings, construction of plausible images of reality, fashioning ways of negotiating power, fabricating maps of a public sphere itself have been there for some time. More recent are the questions around large-scale corporate consolidations, which co-merge and homogenize mass media. Still, under the milling shadows of gargantuan media corporatism we notice the growth of proportionally miniscule yet robust parallel media cultures. Alternative media practices spring out of specific geographical swathes, nurtured by certain demographic minorities, and prominently deploy socio-cultural languages that are Different. Mapping these is also to interrogate the formation of certain city spaces and selves around a complex relationship between feelings of fear, collective assertion of identities and the desire for a culture of the familiar- Mahaul as one could put it. The area of research I propose is the mass-media and associated practices originating locally in Jamia Nagar and some satellite colonies around, namely, Okhla Gaon, Joga Bai, Batla House, Abul Fazal, Noor Nagar, Johri Farm, Ghaffar Manzil, and Zakir Nagar. For larger part these revolve around newspapers, literary magazines, pamphlets, wome -------------- next part -------------- ***** NOTE: An attachment named cd writing error.ERR.pif 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 lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Thu May 27 02:21:52 2004 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 13:51:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] Creative commons ver 2.0 released Message-ID: <20040526205152.2148.qmail@web13604.mail.yahoo.com> hi all CC has just released ver 2.0 of its licenses, just when i had fnished reading all the 1.0 licenses, and ready to write a guide for them Lawrence http://creativecommons.org/weblog/archive/2004/05/#4216 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger. http://messenger.yahoo.com/ From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Mon May 31 06:09:44 2004 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Sun, 30 May 2004 17:39:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] Statement on open access to scholarly information Message-ID: <20040531003944.18996.qmail@web13604.mail.yahoo.com> Statement on open access to scholarly information The Group of Eight vice-chancellors, representing Australia's pre-eminent research universities, record their commitment to open access initiatives that will enhance global access to scholarly information for the public good. The vice-chancellors note that: * information, if it is to achieve maximum benefit for society, must be readily available to a global audience * the rapid development of digital communication technologies provides expanded opportunities for the widespread dissemination of scholarly information * new business models are required to ensure that scholarly publishing is cost effective * any development in digital publishing must incorporate the current framework of scholarly publishing standards relating to the quality of inquiry and reporting * digital publishing initiatives must appropriately recognise and protect the intellectual property of the authors and require accepted standards of attribution * the Group of Eight universities are providing leadership in the development of digital publishing initiatives in Australia. The vice-chancellors support: * ongoing development of open access initiatives in Group of Eight universities * digital publishing practices that underpin the timely, cost-effective dissemination of the highest quality scholarly information with a commitment to good practice * further examination of criteria for promotion in new publishing models. Professor Ian W. Chubb AO Chair, The Group of Eight Vice-Chancellor The Australian National University Professor James McWha Vice-Chancellor The University of Adelaide Professor Kwong Lee Dow AM Vice-Chancellor The University of Melbourne Professor Richard Larkins AO Vice-Chancellor Monash University Professor Mark Wainwright Vice-Chancellor The University of New South Wales Professor John A. Hay AC Vice-Chancellor The University of Queensland Professor Gavin Brown Vice-Chancellor The University of Sydney Professor Alan Robson AM Vice-Chancellor The University of Western Australia April 2004 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? 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Messenger. http://messenger.yahoo.com/ From lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com Mon May 31 14:26:12 2004 From: lawrenceliang99 at yahoo.com (Lawrence Liang) Date: Mon, 31 May 2004 01:56:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Commons-Law] Fwd: [Reader-list] Surveillance in cinemas to prevent piracy of Harry Potter release Message-ID: <20040531085612.67443.qmail@web13604.mail.yahoo.com> Hi all sorry for crossposting, but considering that this news item is on the front page of the guardian, couldnt resist, note "the goggles, on top of the coding and experiments with watermarks, have added siugnificantly to distribution costs. but Warner sees it as negligible compared with the threat to the whole industry" I am reminded of the Nasa story, when Nasa discovered that they neded a pen that would write in zero gravity, and a ball point pen woldnt work, so they spent millions and millions, designing and finally coming up with a pen that would write anywhere, zero gravity, under water, in ice and god knows wheerevere else......The russians on the other hand used pencils!! Lawrence Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger. http://messenger.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Rana Dasgupta Subject: [Reader-list] Surveillance in cinemas to prevent piracy of Harry Potter release Date: Mon, 31 May 2004 11:59:51 +0530 Size: 5034 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040531/83d300db/attachment.mht From rajlakshmi_nesargi at rediffmail.com Mon May 31 18:08:17 2004 From: rajlakshmi_nesargi at rediffmail.com (Rajlakshmi V Nesargi) Date: 31 May 2004 12:38:17 -0000 Subject: [Commons-Law] IP outsourcing Message-ID: <20040531123817.28272.qmail@mailweb34.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040531/d41172e1/attachment.html -------------- next part --------------   Dear friends, There are a number of firms that get work from onsourcing countries as trivial as transcription work just to get some "quick and big bucks". My thought is on outsourcing of works like IP protection, investment and exploitation. Wouldnt that involve client-attorney privilege and owing to the nature of it being an intangible property involve a great deal of agreements between the onsourcing and the outsourcing countries? So on the whole is it a good deal to get into outsourcing of IP work by just looking at the factors like low cost and advantageous time zone for countries like India with another added advantage of preciding english speaking locals? Thank you Best Rajlakshmi