From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Mon Jan 2 13:30:57 2006 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 13:30:57 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] [Fwd:] Amazon's "One Click" patent in India Message-ID: <20060102080057.GA14644@home.wki> > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: igdm lgd > Date: Dec 30, 2005 4:15 PM > Subject: Amazon's "One Click" patent in India > > > Hello, > > I have found 2 versions of the Amazon.com "one click" patent that have been > filed in India (Titles and Patent numbers below) but as I am not able to > access them to find exactly which claims they are applying. > > Do you have any more detailed infomation on these Amazon patents? > > Indian Patent applications: > > > METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PLACING A PURCHASE ORDER VIA A COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK > 345/DEL/99 4. METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PLACING A PURCHASE ORDER VIA A > COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK 2721/DEL/98 > > I have recently written a request for reexamination of the Amazon > "One-Click" patent in the USA and sent it to the USPTO based on some prior > art that I have found (I have passed one patent attorney exam that included > US patent law but I am not a patent attorney). > > I would be very interested to see if this prior art could also be useful > against these Amazon patents in India or elsewhere. > > I have so far raised about 1/2 the funds for the reexamination fee over the > internet. > > (I believe that this distributed method of obtaining funds could be a good > model for attacking unfair patents in other fields-such as pharmaceuticals > or agribusiness -think of this as the prototype). > > Ironically, a lot of the prior art I am using has come from the Internet > Archive Wayback machine-provided by Alexa Internet, which is owned by > Amazon. > > This comes at a time of increased patenting and enforcement by Amazon: > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/12/amazon_triple_patent/ > > Here are some resources about my request for reexamination: > > 1. A critique by someone who developed some of the software that I am > using as prior art and who is training to be a patent attorney: > > http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2005/12/new-zealander-challenges-amazon-one.html#links > > 2. Some commentary by a patent attorney: > > http://www.patentbaristas.com/archives/000288.php > > 3. An article by Germany's leading computer magazine. > > http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/67104 > > 4. My blog explaining how it happened and how it works: > > http://igdmlgd.blogspot.com > > 5. A copy of my actual request (286 pages!) > > http://infoanarchy.org/images/amazonpatent.pdf > > 6. Assorted web commentary: > > http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/12/4/45354/8981 > > http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051130/1243250_F.shtml > > http://www.infoanarchy.org/section/features > > Any comments or criticism would be welcome > > Yours Sincerely > > Peter Calveley > > Note: I am not a lawyer and none of the information in this email is > intended as legal or professional advice. I do not necessarily agree with > or endorse any statements contained in the sites associated with any > hyperlinks in this email. I make no assertions as to the validity of any or > Amazon's intellectual property or the outcome of any possible > reexaminations that may be filed. > > -- Mahesh T. Pai With freedom comes responsibility. Do not use unauthorised copies of copyrighted material. From hbs.law at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 18:30:13 2006 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 18:30:13 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] One-fifth of your DNA is now owned (as in patented) by someone else. Message-ID: <8b60429e0601020500w51b0a650n8c59d20d08bed4e4@mail.gmail.com> One-fifth of your DNA is now owned (as in patented) by someone else. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.01/start.html?pg=17 You've heard of patenting PC parts, but human parts? Organizations are now patenting sequences of nucleotides so they can license the rights to other companies that use the sequences to develop drugs or diagnostic tests. In a sense, the institutions that hold these patents own the intellectual property rights to you - nearly a fifth of you, in fact. A new study from researchers at MIT shows that 4,270 US patents have been issued for 4,382 individual human genes - almost 20 percent of the entire genome. "Patents appear to be concentrated in areas relevant to human disease and biological pathways," says Fiona Murray, a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Genetic patent-infringement lawsuits may be around the corner. A LOOK AT CHROMOSOME 12 374 total patents Gene: A2M Significance: Linked to Alzheimer's disease and emphysema Patent holders: General Hospital ­Corporation, Incyte Gene: ADCY6 Significance: Associated with an enzyme found in thyroid and brain tissues Patent holder: Millennium Pharmaceuticals Gene: CACNB3 Significance: Involved in the release of neurotransmitters and hormones Patent holders: American Home Products*, Bayer, Merck, SIBIA Neuro­sciences* Gene: RDH5 Significance: Related to night blindness Patent holders: Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, PE Corporation* Gene: CD4 Significance: Linked to Lupus and a form of white blood cell deficiency Patent holders: Columbia University, General Hospital Corporation, Incyte, United States of America, University of Pennsylvania, Wistar Institute Gene: DHH Significance: Plays a role in regulating development of reproductive organs and the nervous system Patent holders: Biogen*, Curis Gene: IL22 Significance: Involved in inflammatory bowel disease and Crohn's disease Patent holders: Genentech, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Gene: P2RX7 Significance: Linked to chronic lymphatic leukemia Patent holders: Glaxo*, Incyte Top 10 Holders of Gene Patents 1) Patent Holder: Incyte No. of genes patented: about 2,000 2) Patent Holder: Millennium Pharmaceuticals No. of genes patented: 142 3) Patent Holder: Human Genome Sciences No. of genes patented: 140 4) Patent Holder: Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research No. of genes patented: 90 5) Patent Holder: The Regents of the University of California No. of genes patented: 89 6) Patent Holder: SmithKline Beecham* No. of genes patented: 79 7) Patent Holder: Applera: 59 8) Patent Holder: Isis Pharmaceuticals No. of genes patented: 58 9) Patent Holder: Genetics Institute* No. of genes patented: 53 10) Patent Holder: Lexicon Genetics: 48 * Company has since merged, been acquired, or changed its name. Sources: Kyle Jensen and Fiona Murray, MIT; National Center for Biotechnology Information From hbs.law at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 21:06:30 2006 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 21:06:30 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Patents filing set to get cheaper, easier Message-ID: <8b60429e0601020736t73358a4arf0c49041fea3ae42@mail.gmail.com> Patents filing set to get cheaper, easier Gaurie Mishra in New Delhi | BS | January 02, 2006 | 12:00 IST Filing for patents will become cheaper as the government has made changes in the rules and set the application fee at Rs 4,000 for companies and Rs 1,000 for individuals. While the draft Patents (Second Amendment) Rules 2005 have left the basic fee structure unchanged for grant of patents, additional charges for more claims and voluminous patents applications have been removed. The draft rules, which drastically reduce the filing fee, propose changes to the Patents Rules 2003 and changes, as well, in the time�period for the entire procedure of granting patents - publication of application, examination and opposition. "There has been a drastic cut in the filing fee which was in some cases running into lakhs of rupees. This rationalisation was long overdue as the rates post-January 1, 2005 are exorbitantly high," said Hari Subramanium, a patents attorney. While the fee before the onset of the new patents regime (January 1, 2005) was Rs 4,000 per application for companies, it remained the same (post-January 1) for the first 30 pages. Beyond 30 pages, there was a charge of Rs 400 per page and of Rs 800 for any claim exceeding 10. All these extra charges will go, according to the new draft rules. The draft rules, put up for comments by industry and public for a period of 30 days, have not altered the fee for renewal of patents applications, requests for publication and examination. A requests for examination attracted Rs 10,000 under the January1 regime compared with Rs 4,000 earlier. Further, any extension of time meant a fee of Rs 4,000, Rs 8,000 and Rs 12,000 for the first, second and third months, respectively, compared with Rs 1,000 per month applicable before. "The government has been treating the patents office almost like its cashcow," said a patents attorney. The time-lines for granting patents have also been revised. Under the draft rules, the period for filing of statements and undertakings by foreign applicants has been increased from three months to six months. "The increased time-lines are desirable as three months are too short a time-frame for foreign applicants," said Abhishek Saket, a patents attorney. The time-period for requesting examination of an application has also been increased from six months to nine months. From vivek at sarai.net Thu Jan 5 15:32:14 2006 From: vivek at sarai.net (vivek at sarai.net) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 11:02:14 +0100 (CET) Subject: [Commons-Law] 2006 Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellows Message-ID: <1044.210.211.178.241.1136455334.squirrel@mail.sarai.net> Happy New Year! We're excited to announce this year's Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellows, and we look forward to hearing more about their upcoming explorations... Vivek The Sarai- CSDS Independent Fellows 2006 Arshad Amanullah, New Delhi Journalism in Madrasas and Madrasas in Journalism Daljit Ami, Chandigarh Celluloid and Compact Disks in Punjab Maitrey Bajpai, Mumbai Cawnpore Samit Basu, New Delhi The Trousers of Time: Possible Futures of Indian Speculative Fiction in English Rudradeep Bhattacharjee, Mumbai Freedom in Cyberspace in the Context of India: A video documentary Tushar Bhor, Mumbai Water Lenses: Prelude for a New Imagination for Urban Water in Mumbai Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Kolkata Bishnupur Gharana: Story of a Forgotten Melody: Restoring the sound of Bishnupur Gharana Averee Chaurey, New Delhi The Song of the Baul Ayesha Sen Choudhury, Kolkata Locating Sexuality Through the Eyes of Afghan and Burmese Refugee Women in Delhi Dilip D'Souza, Mumbai Village in the city: Bombay in microcosm Girindra Pravasi Ilaqe mein telephone booth sanskriti (The culture of telephone booths) Uddipana Goswami, Guwahati City as Setting: Reflections of the Changing Faces of Guwahati in Assamese Literature Peerzada Arshad Hamid, Anantnag Exploring the Space of Psychiatric Hospitals in Srinagar Rakshat Hooja, Jaipur Urban Stakeholder Activism and the Role of Resident Welfare Associations Farhana Ibrahim, Gurgaon Maritime Histories: Merchant Networks and the Production of Locality in Western India Lakshmi IndraSimhan and Jacob Weinstein, New Delhi Vending as Vernacular: Depicting Street Sales and Services through Sequential Art Brajesh Kumar Jha, Delhi Hindi Cinemayee geet aur uska Bhashayee safar (The Language Journeys of Hindi Cinema) Anjali Jyoti, New Delhi Home Street Home: A Street Child Survival Guide for Delhi Sunandan K.N., New Delhi Workshop Boys of Coimbatore: A Study of City and Tacit Knowledge Akshaye Khanna, New Delhi Apni Jagah, Zarah Hut Ke: A “Staged Ethnography” of Space and Sexuality Naresh Kumar, New Delhi Festival of Music in the City of Sports: Harballabh Sangeet Mela of Jalandhar Prabhat Kumar, Delhi Yuvak Sangh aur ‘Yuvak’: 1920 ke dashak mein Bihar ka bauddhik parivesh (Yuvak Sangh and the ‘Yuvak’ magazine in the intellectual public sphere in 1920s Bihar) Rajesh Kumar K, Trivandrum An Ethnography of Teyyam Performance from a Practitioner’s Point of View Udaykumar M, New Delhi Unravelling a 'Real' Media Incident in Trivandrum Mallica, New Delhi Identities and Aspirations of Tibetan Youth in New Delhi Mamta Mantri, Mumbai Movie Theatres on and Around Maulana Shaukat Ali Road, Mumbai Abhinandita Mathur Veenu Mathur, New Delhi My building and the Shahar Rajesh Mehar, Bangalore Exploring Notions of Creative Ownership Among Contemporary Musicians Kamal Kumar Mishra Hindi Hridaysthali mein Jasoosi Upanyason va Inkey Paathakon ka Ek Samajik Itihas (A social history of detective novels and their readers in the Hindi heartland) Sanjeev Ranjan Mishra, Delhi Gyan-vinimay ki nayi takneekein aur mel banate Dalit (The New Technologies of Knowledge-flow and the Dalits) Izhar Ahmed Nadeem, Delhi Muslim Mahilaon ki Urdu Patrikayo ki Duniya (Urdu Women's Magazines: Their impact on Muslim Women) Veena Naregal, Informal Economies and Cultural Patronage: Studying Bollywood John Patrick Ojwando, Bangalore An Exploration of the Experiences of Afro students in South Asia Anil Pandey, NOIDA Desi Filmon ka Karobar (An analysis of the desi films trade) Piyush Pandey, Delhi News Channelon ka Satyakathakaran (The Satyakathaization of News Channels, on the compulsive crime reporting on TV) Rahul Pandita, Delhi Byte Soldier: The Life and Times of a Metro TV Reporter: A Graphic Novel in Hindi Janice Erica Pariat, New Delhi Writing the Notion of Home and Urban Space Sudipta Paul, West Bengal Response of the Labour Force to the Changing Urban Formation in the Asansol Industrial Area, West Bengal Dripta Piplai, New Delhi The Hegemony of Calcutta Music Schools in Tagore Songs: Towards an Archival Preservation of 'Multiple Traditions in Rabindrasangeet' Vasundhara Prakash, New Delhi 15 Seconds of Fame: Extras in Bollywood Nandita Raman Dilli ke cinemagharon ka badalta swaroop: ek chhayachitraN (The changing face of Delhi’s cinema halls) Nithya V Raman, Chennai Disaster Politics: An Examination of Tsunami Relief in Chennai Kaushiki Rao, New Delhi Transplanting the Urban Aesthetic in a Resettlement Colony in Delhi Rama Rao Ladkiyon ke College ka sarvajanik telephone aur ab har hath mein mobile (Then and Now: The public telephone in girls’ colleges and the mobile phone) Rinchin, Bhopal Tracing the History of Girl's Education in a Small Town Through the Eyes of its First Woman Teacher Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed, Chennai Indian Print Media and its Reportage on Fatwas Nirupama Sekhar and Sanjay Ramchandran, Mumbai Urban Stories: A Collection of Graphic Essays on the City of Mumbai Debjani Sengupta, New Delhi Colony Fiction: Refugee Colonies and their Representation in Post-Partition Kolkata Aman Sethi, New Delhi Seeking Alternative Ways and Means of Representing the “Poor and the Oppressed” by Studying Informal Networks at Labour Mandis in Delhi Ram Murthi Sharma, UNA, Himachal An Analysis of Magazines in Braille Parismita Singh, New Delhi Babel in Humayunpur, the Gift of Difference: a Comic Book Exploring Migrant Experience Sidharth Srinivasan, New Delhi A photoroman feature film: a Love Story Intertwined with the Myth and Folklore of Delhi's Heritage Sites Sheba Tejani, Mumbai Queer Cityscapes: Exploring Mumbai Cityscapes through the Eyes of Two Queer Women. Mrityunjay Tripathi, Allahabad Allahabad ki Chhatra Rajniti (Student politics in Allahabad) Indu Verma, Mumbai Society and the Soap Factory Aamit Rai, Wardha Harsud aur media (Harsud and the Media) Syed Mohd. Yunus and Syed Mohd Faisal, Delhi Asahay Mahanagar: Help Line karyakartaon ke najariye Se Dilli Shahar ka Adhyayan (Helpless City: A Study of Delhi from the Perspective of Help Line Workers) From vivek at sarai.net Thu Jan 5 15:32:59 2006 From: vivek at sarai.net (vivek at sarai.net) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 11:02:59 +0100 (CET) Subject: [Commons-Law] 2006 Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellows Message-ID: <1045.210.211.178.241.1136455379.squirrel@mail.sarai.net> Happy New Year! We're excited to announce this year's Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellows, and we look forward to hearing more about their upcoming explorations... Vivek The Sarai- CSDS Independent Fellows 2006 Arshad Amanullah, New Delhi Journalism in Madrasas and Madrasas in Journalism Daljit Ami, Chandigarh Celluloid and Compact Disks in Punjab Maitrey Bajpai, Mumbai Cawnpore Samit Basu, New Delhi The Trousers of Time: Possible Futures of Indian Speculative Fiction in English Rudradeep Bhattacharjee, Mumbai Freedom in Cyberspace in the Context of India: A video documentary Tushar Bhor, Mumbai Water Lenses: Prelude for a New Imagination for Urban Water in Mumbai Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Kolkata Bishnupur Gharana: Story of a Forgotten Melody: Restoring the sound of Bishnupur Gharana Averee Chaurey, New Delhi The Song of the Baul Ayesha Sen Choudhury, Kolkata Locating Sexuality Through the Eyes of Afghan and Burmese Refugee Women in Delhi Dilip D'Souza, Mumbai Village in the city: Bombay in microcosm Girindra Pravasi Ilaqe mein telephone booth sanskriti (The culture of telephone booths) Uddipana Goswami, Guwahati City as Setting: Reflections of the Changing Faces of Guwahati in Assamese Literature Peerzada Arshad Hamid, Anantnag Exploring the Space of Psychiatric Hospitals in Srinagar Rakshat Hooja, Jaipur Urban Stakeholder Activism and the Role of Resident Welfare Associations Farhana Ibrahim, Gurgaon Maritime Histories: Merchant Networks and the Production of Locality in Western India Lakshmi IndraSimhan and Jacob Weinstein, New Delhi Vending as Vernacular: Depicting Street Sales and Services through Sequential Art Brajesh Kumar Jha, Delhi Hindi Cinemayee geet aur uska Bhashayee safar (The Language Journeys of Hindi Cinema) Anjali Jyoti, New Delhi Home Street Home: A Street Child Survival Guide for Delhi Sunandan K.N., New Delhi Workshop Boys of Coimbatore: A Study of City and Tacit Knowledge Akshaye Khanna, New Delhi Apni Jagah, Zarah Hut Ke: A “Staged Ethnography” of Space and Sexuality Naresh Kumar, New Delhi Festival of Music in the City of Sports: Harballabh Sangeet Mela of Jalandhar Prabhat Kumar, Delhi Yuvak Sangh aur ‘Yuvak’: 1920 ke dashak mein Bihar ka bauddhik parivesh (Yuvak Sangh and the ‘Yuvak’ magazine in the intellectual public sphere in 1920s Bihar) Rajesh Kumar K, Trivandrum An Ethnography of Teyyam Performance from a Practitioner’s Point of View Udaykumar M, New Delhi Unravelling a 'Real' Media Incident in Trivandrum Mallica, New Delhi Identities and Aspirations of Tibetan Youth in New Delhi Mamta Mantri, Mumbai Movie Theatres on and Around Maulana Shaukat Ali Road, Mumbai Abhinandita Mathur Veenu Mathur, New Delhi My building and the Shahar Rajesh Mehar, Bangalore Exploring Notions of Creative Ownership Among Contemporary Musicians Kamal Kumar Mishra Hindi Hridaysthali mein Jasoosi Upanyason va Inkey Paathakon ka Ek Samajik Itihas (A social history of detective novels and their readers in the Hindi heartland) Sanjeev Ranjan Mishra, Delhi Gyan-vinimay ki nayi takneekein aur mel banate Dalit (The New Technologies of Knowledge-flow and the Dalits) Izhar Ahmed Nadeem, Delhi Muslim Mahilaon ki Urdu Patrikayo ki Duniya (Urdu Women's Magazines: Their impact on Muslim Women) Veena Naregal, Informal Economies and Cultural Patronage: Studying Bollywood John Patrick Ojwando, Bangalore An Exploration of the Experiences of Afro students in South Asia Anil Pandey, NOIDA Desi Filmon ka Karobar (An analysis of the desi films trade) Piyush Pandey, Delhi News Channelon ka Satyakathakaran (The Satyakathaization of News Channels, on the compulsive crime reporting on TV) Rahul Pandita, Delhi Byte Soldier: The Life and Times of a Metro TV Reporter: A Graphic Novel in Hindi Janice Erica Pariat, New Delhi Writing the Notion of Home and Urban Space Sudipta Paul, West Bengal Response of the Labour Force to the Changing Urban Formation in the Asansol Industrial Area, West Bengal Dripta Piplai, New Delhi The Hegemony of Calcutta Music Schools in Tagore Songs: Towards an Archival Preservation of 'Multiple Traditions in Rabindrasangeet' Vasundhara Prakash, New Delhi 15 Seconds of Fame: Extras in Bollywood Nandita Raman Dilli ke cinemagharon ka badalta swaroop: ek chhayachitraN (The changing face of Delhi’s cinema halls) Nithya V Raman, Chennai Disaster Politics: An Examination of Tsunami Relief in Chennai Kaushiki Rao, New Delhi Transplanting the Urban Aesthetic in a Resettlement Colony in Delhi Rama Rao Ladkiyon ke College ka sarvajanik telephone aur ab har hath mein mobile (Then and Now: The public telephone in girls’ colleges and the mobile phone) Rinchin, Bhopal Tracing the History of Girl's Education in a Small Town Through the Eyes of its First Woman Teacher Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed, Chennai Indian Print Media and its Reportage on Fatwas Nirupama Sekhar and Sanjay Ramchandran, Mumbai Urban Stories: A Collection of Graphic Essays on the City of Mumbai Debjani Sengupta, New Delhi Colony Fiction: Refugee Colonies and their Representation in Post-Partition Kolkata Aman Sethi, New Delhi Seeking Alternative Ways and Means of Representing the “Poor and the Oppressed” by Studying Informal Networks at Labour Mandis in Delhi Ram Murthi Sharma, UNA, Himachal An Analysis of Magazines in Braille Parismita Singh, New Delhi Babel in Humayunpur, the Gift of Difference: a Comic Book Exploring Migrant Experience Sidharth Srinivasan, New Delhi A photoroman feature film: a Love Story Intertwined with the Myth and Folklore of Delhi's Heritage Sites Sheba Tejani, Mumbai Queer Cityscapes: Exploring Mumbai Cityscapes through the Eyes of Two Queer Women. Mrityunjay Tripathi, Allahabad Allahabad ki Chhatra Rajniti (Student politics in Allahabad) Indu Verma, Mumbai Society and the Soap Factory Aamit Rai, Wardha Harsud aur media (Harsud and the Media) Syed Mohd. Yunus and Syed Mohd Faisal, Delhi Asahay Mahanagar: Help Line karyakartaon ke najariye Se Dilli Shahar ka Adhyayan (Helpless City: A Study of Delhi from the Perspective of Help Line Workers) From sunil at mahiti.org Fri Jan 6 16:33:00 2006 From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 12:03:00 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] CALL FOR PROJECTS for a residency at Point Ephemere (Paris) in April-May-June 06 Message-ID: <1136545380.8469.24.camel@localhost.localdomain> AIR / ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE CALL FOR PROJECTS for a residency at Point Eph�m�re (Paris) in April-May-June 06 Point Eph�m�re, centre for artistic dynamics in Paris, and The Dune Beach Village near Pondicherry are starting an Artist In Residence program for Indian and French artists. POINT EPHEMERE ######## In Paris, Indian visual artists, video-makers, painters, sculptors are invited to propose their project, before February 10th, in order to have a 3 months residence at Point Eph�m�re, starting in April 2006. Point Eph�m�re's residencies are dedicated to artistic research and creation, or production of a specific project. Artists work in a Point Eph�m�re studio, along the canal St Martin, in the heart of Paris. They are accommodated at Cit� Internationale des Arts, an international foundation that provides more than 300 flats for artists in Paris. The resident artist will benefit from Point Eph�m�re's logistic support and accompaniment in art works production, along with French artists. This program mainly concerns emerging artists, starting their career. They will be chosen for the artistic quality of their work, by a jury of professionals (around February 17th). RESIDENCY ######## The residence consists in: - a plane ticket (round trip) to Paris and back - a grant of 1290 euros, - Possibility for a show or exhibition in Point Eph�m�re and private galleries With this grant, artists will have to assume, with preferential fares : - An accommodation at Cit� International des Arts (290 euros) - A private studio (35 m2) in Point Eph�m�re (300 euros), with access to technical studios, sound and multimedia platforms, - production materials, perdiem. APPLICATION ######## Interested artists will have to provide for application: - a curriculum vitae - images on their actual work - 1 page text on the art's content - documentation on their former work - press reviews and publications - a motivation letter, or if relevant, a brief project in relation with France, Paris. Please send your files UNTIL FEBRUARY 10 TH 2006, BY EMAIL with pdf files, to both eve at pointephemere.org and Josephine at artistsinresidence.org CONTACT ######## For any information, please contact Eve Lemesle : eve at pointephemere.org / (+33) 1 40 34 02 48 This program is founded by City Hall of Paris, and benefit from the sponsorship of Gulf Air, and the support of ENSBA (Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Paris). ................................................................................ Point Eph�m�re 200 Quai de Valmy 75010 Paris France AIR Artists In Residence "The Dune Beach Village" Pudhukuppam, Keelputhupet (Via Pondichery University) 600 014 Tamil Nadu -- Sunil Abraham, sunil at mahiti.org http://www.mahiti.org "Vijay Kiran" IInd Floor, 314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA Ph/Fax: +91 80 51150580. Mob: (91) 9342201521 UK: (44) 02000000259 From pparanagua at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 01:58:07 2006 From: pparanagua at gmail.com (Pedro Moniz) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 17:28:07 -0300 Subject: [Commons-Law] Ford Found. funding IP projects Message-ID: GREAT NEWS! good luck Pedro de Paranaguá Moniz Project Lead at the Centre for Technology and Society (CTS), at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) Law School Manager of the distance learning law courses at FGV Online www.direitorio.fgv.br FGV DIREITO RIO Praia de Botafogo, 190 / 13º andar Rio de Janeiro - RJ, Brazil CEP 22.250-900 +55 21 2559-5457 (extention 9487) fax +55 21 2559-5459 paranagua at fgv.br ***************************** Ford Foundation International Intellectual Property Initiative Funding Priorities The aim of the Ford Foundation's International Intellectual Property Initiative (IIPI) is to contribute to the development of more balanced global Intellectual Property (IP) regime. By this, we mean a regime that takes into account the interests of individuals and society as well as the private sector and the public interest, and that reaffirms the importance of the commons and the public domain. In addition, IIPI considers that an IP regime should, from a right's perspective, recognize innovation, access to knowledge and creative activities as important sources of development for all countries and societies in the world. Preference in this initiative will be given to proposals that support the potential for dialogue among different sectors and players; build institutional capacity, particularly in the global South; strengthen the voice of excluded groups and communities; and encourage pluralistic and participatory governance and decision- making processes. In its first phase, the initiative will focus on the following thematic grant making priorities: 1. Traditional Knowledge (TK) with the objectives of enabling indigenous, tribal and traditional communities to deepen their understanding about the intersection of IP and TK, including IP's potential impact on social processes, and increasing the number of traditional communities able to advocate effectively for their interests in national, regional and international policy arenas. 2. Access to Medicine with the objectives of improving analytical capacity to understand the economic relationship of IPRs to innovation, medical research and development, and medicines pricing and distribution; and enabling developing countries to explore flexibilities within the TRIPs Agreement as well as supporting other South-South and/or regional collaborations that enhance innovative ways to promote R&D and access to medicines in the global south. 3. Access to Knowledge and Educational materials with the objectives of fostering critical analysis regarding the impact of copyright law; deepening understanding among authors, academic institutions, students and the general public regarding their interests in access to knowledge and academic publications; and promoting Open Educational Resources models. HOW TO APPLY: One can apply by sending a letter of inquiry, short concept note (2 pages) or proposal (up to 15 pages) and budget as described below: 1) Letter of Inquiry listing Name of your organization (and acronym if commonly used); Organization's address (and courier address if different); Main expertise the organization (e.g. research, advocacy, capacity building, etc.); Name of the project; Web address, if any; Amount requested. (2) Concept note or proposal, including A brief statement (two or three sentences) of the purpose and nature of the proposed work; The significance of the issue addressed by the project and how it relates to one or another of the above-stated initiative grant- making priorities; How the project is related to IIPI initiative goals and principles; How the issue relates to your organization, and why your organization is qualified to undertake the project; The policy-making forums or goals to which the work is related; The type of alliances and/or participatory networks in which your institution is involved; How is the project related to FF IP initiative goals; Geographic area or country where the work will take place; Beneficiaries of your proposed project (information about those who will be helped and are interested in the work, and how you will communicate with them); Brief summary of proposed activities, deliverables, and outcomes/ impacts over what period of time; Dissemination/communications strategy for project deliverables and outcomes; Amount of funding requested from FF and total cost (estimates are acceptable). (3) Budget request in excel spreadsheet format The proposal should be sent by email to the initiative coordinators Ana Toni (a.toni at fordfounda.org) and Suzanne Siskel ( s.siskel at fordfound.org) and with a cc to Carolina Rossini (c.rossini_c at fordfound.org). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060106/1fa6fb84/attachment.html From vinay at nls.ac.in Tue Jan 10 10:20:04 2006 From: vinay at nls.ac.in (Vinay Aravind) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 10:20:04 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Patenting a Brand In-Reply-To: <20060107110009.99C5328DB7C@mail.sarai.net> References: <20060107110009.99C5328DB7C@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <33119.59.94.109.43.1136868604.squirrel@59.94.109.43> This is for anybody out there who still believes that the American concept of Patents is sane.(I know it's not been granted as yet, but I wonder if i'd be shocked if it was) Vinay Trademark World, December 2005 When it comes to the crunch,cereality gets serious Research suggest that cereal is more popular than sex, which is why ‘patenting’ a cereal breakfast café could cause quite a stir. Jeremy Phillips airs his views. Journalists get it wrong from time to time and we all cluck with irritation when we read in the press how some bright young business brain has just “copyrighted a patent” or “patented a trademark”. Every so often, though, the journalists are right. Take the case of Chicago-based Cereality, a breakfast food bar and café that appears to be patenting a brand. According to news reports, customers of Cereality can mix more than 30 leading brands of cereals to their taste. They can then take the resulting concoction away for private consumption or add milk from a “Moo Machine” and eat it while relaxing on a sofa. Flavoured milks are offered, as well as toppings that range from bananas and nuts to sugary “Pop Rocks”. The counter-staff are called ‘cerealogists’ they wear uniform pyjamas and the premises show non-stop popular cartoons on overhead television sets. The prime target market consists of homesick students, whose diet consists almost entirely of brands such as LUCKY CHARMS and FROOT LOOPS. The ingredients Lawyers for Cereality chain are reported to have submitted a 40-point patent claim to the United States Patent Office, covering the manner in which the company makes and markets each bowl of cereal. There, at least, the reports are wrong. Cereality has filed not one but two patent applications, 20050246223 (Data collection, processing and analysis systems, such as for use in a food service environment, consisting of a massive 48 claims) and 20050160005 (Methods and systems for providing food, beverages, and associated goods and services in a retail environment, being a mere 40 claims). To give Trademark World readers some notion of what’s in store for them, Claim 27 of ‘005 is for “A retail restaurant method comprising: providing a quick-serve restaurant having a front counter at a point-of-sale and signage behind the counter displaying a menu having multiple menu items, wherein a majority of entree food items on the menu include multiple independently branded food items in a same food category, wherein the independently branded food items are manufactured by at least two different manufacturers; receiving from a walk-up customer a food order selected from the menu items, wherein the food order includes a designation by the customer of at least two different food items selected from the multiple independently branded food items; preparing the order by combining a predetermined portion of each of the two different food items selected by the customer from the multiple independently branded food items; and providing the order to the customer in exchange for payment”. Acerbic comment seems almost superfluous and this is neither the time nor the place for knocking the US patent system. In any event, there are plenty other people lining up to do so. But this is the place for asking what on earth Cereality is trying to do. Not an easy choice Cereality says it is only trying to protect its brand image: it is not attempting to put competitors out of business. Indeed, its applications cover all the visible trade dress features of its business, from the uniforms and the kitchen-cabinet display area to the way the cereals are mixed. If this is so, then why is the company so eager to protect its brand image via patent law? Patents are far more expensive to obtain and to enforce than other intellectual property rights. They are liable to be struck down for lack of novelty or (as is more likely in this case) for lack of inventiveness and for failing to disclose any art that was not previously known and available to the public. Even their scope of protection is uncertain, as the pendulum of protection conferred by the doctrine of equivalents continues to oscillate from one extreme of patent construction to another. Finally, what do you do when the patent runs out? To the untrained legal eye, legal protection other than through patents would appear adequate enough, whether in the US or elsewhere. McDonalds has done a pretty good job of establishing a powerful market position using little more than trademarks, notwithstanding the fact that it came to the market with a name that was a common surname and had to compete against many other and in some cases highly similar fast burger formats. Much the same can be said for the Burger Kings, Wimpys and Wendys, as well as Starbucks and its caffeine-alikes around the world. As it is, the move to obtain patent protection may have backfired. Supporters of rival cafés claim that Cereality has made a crude attempt to bully them out of a rapidly growing business. What’s more, Florida Free Culture, a student group calling for the repeal of intellectual property laws, have launched a “Cereal Solidarity” campaign to fight the patent application (remember, students are Cereality’s target market). Much is at stake: market research allegedly shows that, while only 57 per cent of Americans enjoy sex, 95 per cent like cereals. From hbs.law at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 12:22:38 2006 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 12:22:38 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] The Patent Epidemic - It's wasting companies' money and slowing the development of new products Message-ID: <8b60429e0601092252u1eb065caqbc9fea12931311a0@mail.gmail.com> ====================================== Dear All, This is a nicely written piece about problems in the obviousness zoo of US patent law. Good material for those opposing patents! But do note an important point, that patenting shows a jump when a new kind of energy source, material or something fundamentally novel is created. This is not a fault of a patent system but rather the fact that patent system deals with a field that has sporadic, irregular and uneven jumps in progress. Anti-software patent activists should make a note of this fact. "One reason for this explosion is the natural tendency of patents to track broad economic and technological trends. Just as the early 20th century saw the advent of large-scale patenting of chemicals, the past two decades have witnessed the spread of patents on computer software, business methods, and genes. Controversy often accompanies the expansion. For example, critics say many business method patents, for processes that perform operations, are often nothing more than combinations of age-old practices with a computer or the Internet. " Regards, - Hasit ====================================== JANUARY 9, 2006, BUSINESSWEEK.COM LEGAL AFFAIRS The Patent Epidemic It's wasting companies' money and slowing the development of new products A man "has a right to use his knife to cut his meat, a fork to hold it; may a patentee take from him the right to combine their use on the same subject?" -- Thomas Jefferson The order was potentially a big one for KSR International Co. General Motors Corp. () wanted the Canadian auto parts maker to supply gas pedals for its 2003 Chevrolet and GMC light trucks and sport-utility vehicles. But not just any pedals. GM wanted adjustable ones that could move back and forth to accommodate drivers of different heights. And it wanted the pedals to send an electronic signal, rather than using a mechanical cable, to change the engine speed when a driver stepped on or off the accelerator. Both features had been around the automobile industry for a number of years, so KSR set about designing a combination. Not so fast, warned a March, 2001, letter from Teleflex Inc. (), a Limerick (Pa.) competitor that had gotten wind of KSR's discussions with GM. Teleflex claimed its patents covered all combinations of an adjustable pedal with an electronic sensor and that anyone else making them would be infringing. If KSR wanted to proceed, the letter said, it needed to pay Teleflex a royalty. Rejecting the demand, KSR sealed the deal with GM, which it still supplies. Teleflex sued KSR, and the companies are now locked in litigation. KSR's defense is simple: U.S. law does not allow patents for inventions that are "obvious." Nothing could be more obvious, KSR says in court filings, than a combination of "preexisting, off-the-shelf components" that each perform "exactly the same function" for which they were originally designed. In essence, KSR's argument is that Teleflex may as well have patented the combination of the refrigerator and the light bulb. Rodger D. Young, Teleflex's attorney, counters: "The fact that Device A and Device B exist does not make it...obvious that they should be put together." HIGH COURT INTEREST KSR has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in. If it does, the gas pedal dispute will join a high court docket unusually rich in patent cases this term, with the collective potential for broadly reshaping current law. The justices have not taken such an interest in the area since 1965. How to determine when an invention is "obvious" is one of the most critical and contentious issues in patent circles. Over the past two decades, critics say, the hurdle for passing the obviousness test has been steadily lowered, and the U.S. is now awash in a sea of junk patents. Some are just plain silly, such as a patent for "a method [of] exercising and entertaining cats" (basically teasing them with a laser pointer), or another for "an animal toy that a dog may carry in its mouth" (which not only sounds suspiciously like a stick but also looks like one in the patent drawings). But many perceive a serious threat. A coalition of businesses, including Microsoft (), Cisco Systems (), VF, Hallmark Cards, and Fortune Brands () has jointly filed its own brief in the KSR case asking the Supreme Court to take corrective action. Two dozen intellectual-property law professors have made a similar filing. Massive overpatenting, the professors say, "creates an unnecessary drag on innovation," forcing companies to redesign their products, pony up license fees for technology that should be free, and even deter some research altogether. The tide shows no sign of turning. In 2004, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office issued 181,000 patents, up from 99,000 in 1990. New applications, meanwhile, are being filed at a rate of about 400,000 per year. If the Patent Office closed its doors today it would need two years just to clear the backlog. One reason for this explosion is the natural tendency of patents to track broad economic and technological trends. Just as the early 20th century saw the advent of large-scale patenting of chemicals, the past two decades have witnessed the spread of patents on computer software, business methods, and genes. Controversy often accompanies the expansion. For example, critics say many business method patents, for processes that perform operations, are often nothing more than combinations of age-old practices with a computer or the Internet. In an article in The National Law Journal last month, New York attorney Barry Schindler expressed the current patent-everything-in-sight mentality. Seizing on a recent ruling by a Patent Office administrative board that said method patents don't even need to make use of technology, he advised companies to "now seek U.S. patent rights for any unique business method covering every conceivable business operation, such as methods of billing clients, hiring employees, marketing products or service...or simply obtaining funding." All this complicates day-to-day life for a range of businesses. Companies operating in patent-choked environments are at continual risk of tripping over someone else's intellectual property. Microsoft Corp. is now defending itself in 35 to 40 patent infringement suits simultaneously, and Cisco Systems Inc. faces seven. That in itself is a sign something is amiss, says Robert Barr, who was chief patent counsel for Cisco from January, 2000, to July, 2005. Barr, who now teaches at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, says it's too easy for engineers to inadvertently infringe patents just by doing their normal work. "That's not what the law is intended to do," he says. "There shouldn't be patents on things that people will just routinely invent." Barr adds that "the idea of the obviousness test is to root these things out." Old Economy companies face similar trouble. Apparel maker VF Corp., for instance, regularly gets letters complaining it has infringed bra patents. "In the old days you would think of these things as the tinkering of a technician who knew his way around women's apparel...and wouldn't even think about getting a patent on it," says Peter Sullivan, the attorney who filed the brief in the KSR case on behalf of VF and others. "How many bra patents can you possibly have?" Defeating even a dubious patent can take tremendous resources. After Storage Technology Corp. () sued Cisco for patent infringement, it took Cisco six years and $10 million to get a jury to declare last June that StorageTek's patent was invalid. (StorageTek was purchased by Sun Microsystems Inc. () a week before the verdict.) Even before the trial, Cisco believed the disputed technology was obsolete and no longer used by its customers. But it still had its engineers remove it from its routers because of the potential for draconian damages or an injunction if Cisco had lost. DEFENSIVE PATENTING Those kinds of litigation-driven business decisions can waste resources and money. So can another strategy known as defensive patenting. To ward off claims of infringement from others, companies pump up their own patent portfolios. Cisco has gone from obtaining a few hundred patents annually to around 1,000. "A large part of that investment is to assure that if someone wants to assert patents against us, we will have some countervailing tools," says Cisco General Counsel Mark Chandler. It's the patent world's equivalent of mutually assured destruction. Instead of suing, companies agree to license each other their intellectual property. "A network router, a golf club, a software program...a bra all become more expensive as more and more patent holders must be paid royalties," notes the brief filed in the KSR case by Cisco and others. To many observers, one of the primary culprits in this situation is the evisceration of the obviousness test by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. That has led to a flood of low-quality patents being granted, and made it particularly difficult to challenge a patent in court on the ground of obviousness. In 2001, Microsoft settled a suit by Priceline.com () for infringing its "name-your-price" auction patent. Yet to this day, Andy Culbert, Microsoft's top in-house patent litigation counsel, says the Priceline patent is a prime example of an obvious combination of two things that already existed: reverse auctions and the Internet. KSR initially was able to persuade a court that Teleflex's invention was obvious. After Teleflex filed suit in federal court in Detroit, Judge Lawrence P. Zatkoff considered evidence from engineering experts on whether combining an adjustable pedal with an electronic sensor would have been obvious to someone having skill in the area. He concluded that it would and ruled on summary judgment in December, 2003, that Teleflex' patent was invalid. (Teleflex sold its pedal unit to a private-equity group last August. It now operates in Troy, Mich., under the name DriveSol Worldwide Inc.) But in January, 2005, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Judge Zatkoff's ruling. The court, which hears nearly all patent appeals, said the judge had not followed its rule for inventions based on a combination of existing elements. That rule says courts -- and patent examiners -- can't reject an invention as obvious unless they can point to specific references suggesting the elements could be combined. Those references are typically previous patents or technical literature. Defenders of the rule say it prevents hindsight bias -- the natural tendency of a person to regard something as obvious once she sees it -- by requiring documented evidence that an idea was easily within grasp. KSR and others who oppose the rule say it is contrary to guidelines set by the Supreme Court, which last considered the issue 40 years ago. And they say it doesn't square with how the world works. Microsoft attorney Culbert notes that new technology emerges all the time that isn't written about in scientific journals or other published materials, particularly in fast-developing areas such as software. Other commentators have noted that, in many fields, what gets written down is precisely what isn't obvious, guaranteeing that what the Federal Circuit Court requires won't be found. The bottom line: Rulings rejecting patents on the basis of obviousness are rare, and massive overpatenting continues to be a thriving business. By Michael Orey From gnthej at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 14:26:59 2006 From: gnthej at gmail.com (Thejesh GN) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 14:26:59 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] reverse engineering in India Message-ID: <4b0dd710601100056x742987f8k3f1db6dd4afd69f0@mail.gmail.com> The new amendment (1999) brought forth a few changes in the fair use provision pertaining to computer software. It added three new provisions in the Act in Section 52(1) (aa). The new provisions read: "(ab) the doing of any act necessary to obtain information essential for operating interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs by a lawful possessor of a computer program provided that such information is not otherwise readily available; (ac) the observation, study or test of functioning of the computer program in order to determine the ideas and principles which underline any elements of the program while performing such acts necessary for the functions for which the computer program was supplied; (ad) the making of copies or adaptation of the computer program from a legally obtained copy for non-commercial personal use I have doubt with (ac). If I buy a software with the license prohibiting me from reverse engineering it. Decomposing it will become copyright infringement ? Any help with the point (ac) will be great. -- Thanks, Thejesh GN http://www.techmag.biz -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060110/cf415410/attachment.html From lawrence at altlawforum.org Tue Jan 10 18:33:46 2006 From: lawrence at altlawforum.org (Lawrence Liang) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 18:33:46 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Swedish Pirate Party sets sail] In-Reply-To: <43C3A705.5000906@osieurope.org> Message-ID: [Anyone know these people? Ville?] http://dooooooom.blogspot.com/2006/01/swedish-pirate-party-sets-sail.html Swedish Pirate Party sets sail A new political party in Sweden is being set up in radical opposition to intellectual property laws: [Piratpartiet] plans to remove all immaterial rights, including copyrights and patents and also plans to stop Sweden's participation in international copyright organizations, including WIPO and WTO and to make it illegal to put any restrictions on distribution of digital content (in form of DRM, copy protections, etc). [Piratpartiet] also states that it plans to uphold and push even further the strict privacy laws currently in place in Sweden and to make it illegal to track or monitor citizens' communications online and offline. It will be fascinating to see if this is the start of a new peasants' revolt in the developed world against increasingly unpopular IP laws. I've always thought that Napster and the recording industry's response would radicalise an entire new generation of voters. _______________________________________________ edri-ip mailing list edri-ip at mailman.edri.org http://mailman.edri.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/edri-ip -- Vera Franz Program Manager Information Program Open Society Foundation Cambridge House 100, Cambridge Grove London, W6 OLE phone +44 20 7031 0219 fax +44 20 7031 0201 ------ End of Forwarded Message From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Wed Jan 11 08:18:10 2006 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 08:18:10 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] reverse engineering in India In-Reply-To: <4b0dd710601100056x742987f8k3f1db6dd4afd69f0@mail.gmail.com> References: <4b0dd710601100056x742987f8k3f1db6dd4afd69f0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060111024809.GA17681@home.wki> Thejesh GN said on Tue, Jan 10, 2006 at 02:26:59PM +0530,: > I have doubt with (ac). If I buy a software with the license prohibiting me > from reverse engineering it. Decomposing it will become copyright > infringement ? The software is LICENSED to you, not SOLD. The license is an agreement, and the relationship is governed by terms of the contract. A SALE would have created a relationship of status between you and the owner of the copyright, and terms of that relationship would have been governed by the Copyright Act, thus giving you the right to reverse engineer. When you reverse engineered the piece of s/w, you violated the contract (license), So now, you have lost the right to use the software. Becaus you have no right to the software, you are in possession of an infringing copy. Because you are in possession of an infringing copy, you have committed a crime. Now, go to jail!!! -- Mahesh T. Pai Free Software is a misnomer. You should say `Liberated User'. -me From gnthej at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 16:29:00 2006 From: gnthej at gmail.com (Thejesh GN) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 16:29:00 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] reverse engineering in India In-Reply-To: <20060111024809.GA17681@home.wki> References: <4b0dd710601100056x742987f8k3f1db6dd4afd69f0@mail.gmail.com> <20060111024809.GA17681@home.wki> Message-ID: <4b0dd710601110259k719f2fean30b6fd7e35e10df1@mail.gmail.com> On 1/11/06, Mahesh T. Pai wrote: > > Thejesh GN said on Tue, Jan 10, 2006 at 02:26:59PM +0530,: > > > I have doubt with (ac). If I buy a software with the license prohibiting > me > > from reverse engineering it. Decomposing it will become copyright > > infringement ? > Now, go to jail!!! That is what I needed. Thanks Mahesh. I am actually writing a paper called "Reverse Engineering computer programs and Indian copyright laws" as a part of my course in NLSIU. I need this ionfo for that. If you have time please take the survey (6Qs only) http://www.techmag.biz/reverse_engg_survey which will be used in the paper. -- Thanks, Thejesh GN http://www.techmag.biz -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060111/d914a623/attachment.html From hbs.law at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 21:40:13 2006 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 21:40:13 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: commons-law Digest, Vol 30, Issue 8 In-Reply-To: <20060111110010.89D8328DB44@mail.sarai.net> References: <20060111110010.89D8328DB44@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <8b60429e0601110810q1497c4fcn3436d60373f4485f@mail.gmail.com> Thejesh, You should check the legislative history of sec. 52(ac) before you write the article. A contract cannot override a statute, since by definition a contract is an agreement enforceable by law. The Copyright Act section 52. (ac) expressly permits "observation, study or test" of the computer program for purposes of understanding the working of the program. Section 52 is titled "Certain acts not to be infringement of copyright". Is there a section in copyright act that enables a contract or a license to override the provisions of the Act? I would like to know about such a provision. And yes, don't worry you won't go to jail if you do what Section 52(ac) permits. Regards, Hasit > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 16:29:00 +0530 > From: Thejesh GN > Subject: Re: [Commons-Law] reverse engineering in India > To: commons-law at sarai.net > Message-ID: > <4b0dd710601110259k719f2fean30b6fd7e35e10df1 at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > On 1/11/06, Mahesh T. Pai wrote: > > > > Thejesh GN said on Tue, Jan 10, 2006 at 02:26:59PM +0530,: > > > > > I have doubt with (ac). If I buy a software with the license prohibiting > > me > > > from reverse engineering it. Decomposing it will become copyright > > > infringement ? > > Now, go to jail!!! > > > That is what I needed. Thanks Mahesh. > I am actually writing a paper called "Reverse Engineering computer programs > and Indian copyright laws" as a part of my course in NLSIU. I need this > ionfo for that. > > If you have time please take the survey (6Qs only) > http://www.techmag.biz/reverse_engg_survey which will be used in the paper. > -- > Thanks, > Thejesh GN > http://www.techmag.biz > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060111/d914a623/attachment.html > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > commons-law mailing list > commons-law at sarai.net > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law > > > End of commons-law Digest, Vol 30, Issue 8 > ****************************************** > From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Thu Jan 12 16:09:01 2006 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 16:09:01 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: commons-law Digest, Vol 30, Issue 8 In-Reply-To: <8b60429e0601110810q1497c4fcn3436d60373f4485f@mail.gmail.com> References: <20060111110010.89D8328DB44@mail.sarai.net> <8b60429e0601110810q1497c4fcn3436d60373f4485f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060112103901.GA7238@home.wki> Hasit seth said on Wed, Jan 11, 2006 at 09:40:13PM +0530,: > write the article. A contract cannot override a statute, since by Yes; a contract cannot override a statute; but in this case, the Copyright Act gives the copyright holder the freedom to distribute his work in any manner he likes - by sale of copies, by assigning the copyright and by licensing his rights. The Act never intended that the copyright holder distribute the work under a license; but as long as there is no explicit bar in the Act, it is perfectly legal for him|her to distribute the work under a license, rather than merely SELL the copy. There are several decisions which examine whether the provisions in the licens agreement are valid or not; but none which examine whether the practise of licensing was intended to give a copy of the copyrighted work to the end user. > definition a contract is an agreement enforceable by law. The > Copyright Act section 52. (ac) expressly permits "observation, > study or test" of the computer program for purposes of > understanding the working of the program. Yup; so you long as you have a copy of the copyrighted work. Under the ``end luser icensing agreement'', you do not *have* a copy; what you have is the *right to use* the copy. Under that EULA, (for proprietary software; the rights the end user has are precisely those which are granted by the license. If the copy was *sold* rather than licensed, the user would have enjoyed the ``fair use rights'' under the Copyright Act. > Section 52 is titled "Certain acts not to be infringement of > copyright". Is there a section in copyright act that enables a > contract or a license to override the provisions of the Act? Yes; the provisions relating to the licensing; (Section 30); the proprietary EULA[1] is an agreement; the Copyright Act allows it. > I would like to know about such a provision. And yes, don't worry > you won't go to jail if you do what Section 52(ac) permits. You wont go to jail till a court convicts you and you exhaust all avenues of appeal (chances of a conviction at the trial stage in India is one in fifteen; and chances of it being reversed by a court of appeal are 9 in 10). "You are not prosecuted" != "you have not broken any law". [1] Most Free/copyleft licenses are mere grants; not agreements. That is why licenses like the BSD or GNU's GPL do not require the user to accept the license to use the software. -- Mahesh T. Pai DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. From abhayraj at nls.ac.in Fri Jan 13 19:57:14 2006 From: abhayraj at nls.ac.in (Abhayraj Naik) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:57:14 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Quirk News and Submission Call Message-ID: <59231.202.54.87.179.1137162434.squirrel@202.54.87.179> hi people, many apologies for cross-posting the little litmag from Bangalore - Quirk - is doing fairly well. We've launched an ambitious new website revamp project, and we're trying to shape up our distribution network. we've also been slowly building a steadily increasing readership in and outside Bangalore. If anyone can help us with organizing a sound distribution (India and South Aasia) plan, please do let us know. do write in for our subsequent editions: warm regards of the new year from the Quirk team Abhayraj Naik Bangalore ___________________________________________________________________________ *Quirk* *quirk at nls.ac.in www.quirk.in* *CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS* *January-February, 2006.* *FEATURED THEME* *"Luxury's Lap"* *Also Looking For*: Poetry, Short Stories, Articles, Opinions, Reviews, Visual Art, Cartoons, Cool Quizzes, Puzzles, Wacky Undefinable Submissions, and So On.... Think Big, Think Different. Anything That's Good and Fits our Quirky Quality Standards - We're Good to Publish. No Restrictions on Length, Content or Style. *Flexible deadline: **February 25, 2006**.* *CONTRIBUTE. CRITICIZE. ABUSE. PRAISE.* *Send in your contributions* *quirk at nls.ac.in* Physical contributions can be posted to: The Editorial Collective, Quirk National Law School of India University Nagarbhavi Bangalore - 560072 India ___________________________________________________________________________ -- Abhayraj Naik From prabhuram at gmail.com Sat Jan 14 16:40:11 2006 From: prabhuram at gmail.com (prabhu ram) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 12:10:11 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] Can a Recipe Be Stolen? Message-ID: <68752c9f0601140310l5981731dx@mail.gmail.com> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/03/AR2006010300316_pf.html Can a Recipe Be Stolen? Joyce Gemperlein Like most teenagers, Dana Simms and 11 other members of the Tilden Woods Swim Team know more about iPods and Google than about pea pods and kugel. So when they began soliciting recipes for a cookbook to benefit cancer research last summer, they were startled that technology and cooking converged. "We all know about plagiarism, copyright and intellectual property rights issues, but we hadn't given them a thought when it came to the cookbook," said Simms, a junior at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda. When a potential contributor fretted about handing over a recipe for Toll House cookies that appears online, in many cookbooks -- and on bags of semisweet chocolate chips -- "we did begin to worry a little," she said. The girls knew the legal concepts from high school, and copyright and intellectual property issues were being drummed into them because of lawsuits on downloading music into MP3 players and iPods. But here were similar issues in the kitchen. Some friends and relatives were hesitant to contribute favorite recipes that had been culled from cookbooks or online databases. Could they be accused of plagiarism or a violation of intellectual property rights? What if the recipes were tweaked? Is using a smidge more mayonnaise in a chicken salad and substituting mango chunks for peaches enough to call the recipe your own? It's one thing to hand down a family recipe from one generation to the next, but what about offering a not-entirely-original recipe for publication in a cookbook, even for a charitable cause? "What this reflects is a rising awareness over the last 20 years of copyright issues . . . and the chilling effect of copyright enforcement . . . people being intimidated out of using basic common sense about things that would or should never generate a lawsuit," said Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of "Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity." It's highly unlikely, he said, that anyone would be sued for putting someone else's published recipe -- with or without attribution -- in a charity cookbook or posting it on the Internet where it can be disseminated to millions of cooks almost instantly. In fact, said Vaidhyanathan, an assistant professor of culture and communications at New York University, it would be unusual even to receive a nasty letter about it. "There isn't [big] money at stake." U.S. copyright law addresses recipes, but what holds sway can be called either ethics or etiquette. Cooking is not considered inventing; rather, it evolves. Copyright law specifies that "substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions," such as a cookbook, can be copyrighted but that a mere list of ingredients cannot receive that protection. The ethics guidelines of the International Association of Culinary Professionals focus on giving proper attribution to recipes that are published or taught. The association advises using the words "adapted from," "based on" or "inspired by," depending on how much a recipe has been revised. ("Adapted from" is the phrasing favored by The Washington Post and many other newspaper food sections, which, along with culinary instructors, enjoy "fair use" of someone's creation for the purpose of teaching, news reporting, scholarship or research.) The only time a recipe should be printed without attribution, the association contends, is when it has been changed so substantially that it no longer resembles its source. In cyberspace, however, there's some confusion about where to draw the line. Many Web sites carry warnings about posting "copyrighted" material, but most do not define what that means in cooking circles. Rachel Rappaport, a Baltimore teacher, operates a blog called Coconut & Lime in which she shares recipes she has liked. She says her understanding -- a common one -- is that if she changes two or three ingredients in a recipe, it becomes her own and requires no attribution. At the eGullet Society of Culinary Arts & Letters, an online site for epicures, copyright laws and courtesies are a constant topic of discussion, said founder Steven A. Shaw, a lawyer-turned-food writer. Shaw contends that posting a lengthy discussion of legal and ethical conduct, enforcing detailed membership requirements and constant monitoring of content -- including recipes -- keep his site from joining what he calls "the Wild West" of online copyright violations. For amateur cooks who participate in the Pillsbury Bake-Off, the recipes they are passing off as their own had better be their own. Bake-Off officials perform "originality" searches on the 100 finalists, said Marlene Johnson, senior public relations manager. Contestants whose recipes do not have at least "several significant differences" from any found in a thorough search, she says, are disqualified. Professional cooks who publish recipes that blatantly copy colleagues' work without attribution are often shunned or gossiped about, but even then, lawsuits are rare. Washington chef and cookbook author Nora Pouillon said she would not sue if she saw her formula for, say, cherry clafoutis, on a Web site. She'd be the first to say that she based her recipe on versions of the French specialty featuring kirsch-soaked fruit that she had seen or eaten during her childhood in Austria. Wonderful food, she points out, is more than a recipe. It also is the sum of a cook's experience, eye for detail and technique, plus the quality of the ingredients. Pouillon said she's flattered if somebody passes along one of her recipes. "It's nice to get credit, but I really feel that a recipe is something to share," she said. On the other hand, if someone is a terrible cook, she said, she would rather that person not tell people that the formula for yam vichyssoise came from her. -- Prabhu Ram, Max-Planck-Institut for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law, MarstallPlatz 1, 80539 Munich GERMANY Tel: + 49 89 24246226 Mob: + 49 17629830521 Web: http://infoserve.blogspot.com From prabhuram at gmail.com Sat Jan 14 17:22:55 2006 From: prabhuram at gmail.com (prabhu ram) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 12:52:55 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] Is Google infringing Bollywood copyrights? Message-ID: <68752c9f0601140352x6ca3e466i@mail.gmail.com> http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1598388,001100030003.htm Is Google infringing Bollywood copyrights? New York Google dotcom may be facing some tough questions from Bollywood entrepreneurs with its newly established video-viewing site. Several popular Hindi movies are on the site to be viewed free of cost. Ken Naz, CEO of Erosentertainment, North America division, spoke to IANS regarding the Google video site offering Hindi movies. "It's illegal, it is not allowed. It is totally illegal. There are laws, which we'll be going after.... I think there should be more write-ups about it." Hindi films like Bunty Aur Babli, Paheli, Neal 'N' Nikkii, Ek Khilari Ek Hasina are all on the website IANS went to the Google website and viewed some of these freely available videos that included movies like Neal 'N' Niki and Swades, all fairly recent releases. IANS contacted Google by phone as well e-mail but did not receive any response. Indian American entrepreneurs related to Bollywood are fuming over what they allege is an infringement of the copyright of moviemakers similar to the famous case of Napster which lost a battle in court against the American music industry when it allowed its software to be used for free music downloads from the Web and sharing of materials. "Google Video allows users to upload, store and distribute videos for free or for a fee," Sunil Thakur, founder of WahIndia!, a website that syndicates its entertainment segments online to sites like Sify and Planetguru and has been in existence for two and a half years now. Google's new video-viewing site hosts several Hindi films for free viewing. Recent releases like Bunty Aur Babli, Paheli, Neal 'N' Niki, Ek Khilari Ek Hasina are all on the website. "This mechanism is now abused heavily by users for Bollywood films, music videos, and directly infringes on original rights holders' property," he said, adding that Google puts the burden of monitoring and policing their video site on the original rights holder. In communications he had with Google through an associate who works there, Thakur said he received a response in which Google suggest he "contact the user directly", to remove content, or "file a complaint" using standard form to contact Google Video. Because WahIndia! depends heavily for revenue from legally contracting with Bollywood moviemakers and uses materials from that industry to make its syndicated shows, "We feel the pain, and we know the pain of the industry," Thakur said. "These users (that Google asks us to contact) are usually untraceable and could be from anywhere in the world. "While one waits for the issue to resolve, the filmmaker could be losing real money as new releases are downloaded and passed around on PC, iPOD, Sony PSP," Thakur complained. "It doesn't look like Google has given much consideration to the copyright laws of other countries. I'm sure they have protections in place for Hollywood films, but they don't seem to care about Bollywood," said Vivek Wadhwa, director of Duke University's Engineering Management Program, who has been involved in the making of Bollywood Bride, an Indian and American co-production. "Hollywood is well organised and they would pursue Google as aggressively as they did Napster. But Bollywood doesn't have the resources to launch these types of lawsuits. So this creates yet another piracy threat to Bollywood. And now anyone can watch a pirated movie," Wadhwa maintained. Right now you can download Bollywood films through file sharing networks, subscription websites and Internet Relay Chat (IRC). The latest films are available soon after they are released. "But all this requires technical skills and this is hard to do," Wadhwa said. "What Google has done is to make this whole process much easier - so that anyone who can use Google can simply search for films or music videos and click to watch them." Thakur said he was aware that Google had launched its video site more than three months ago to enable individuals to upload their videos for the rest of the world to watch. But it was only two weeks ago, when a student told him he sees Hindi movies on Google video, that Thakur was alerted. "Then I heard Shikhar was on site full-length and it was only released last week in India. So somebody uploaded it after taking a movie in a theatre," Thakur surmised. "It upset us because that is part of our business model as well and we are working with some distributors (in Bollywood) so that we can legally use content. All these films are the gems of the recent one year or even a month back," he said. -- Prabhu Ram, Max-Planck-Institut for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law, MarstallPlatz 1, 80539 Munich GERMANY Tel: + 49 89 24246226 Mob: + 49 17629830521 Web: http://infoserve.blogspot.com From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Sat Jan 14 19:55:22 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 09:25:22 -0500 Subject: [Commons-Law] Oram: The Problem with Webcasting: A cast that can be imprisoning Message-ID: <43C909D2.4D5FEFD1@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> (Article text pasted below. -- Seth) -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [IP] The Problem with Webcasting: A cast that can be imprisoning Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 09:04:43 -0500 From: David Farber To: ip at v2.listbox.com Begin forwarded message: From: Andy Oram Date: January 13, 2006 10:27:07 PM EST To: dave at farber.net Subject: The Problem with Webcasting: A cast that can be imprisoning > http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/etel/2006/01/13/the-problem-with-webcasting.html Andy Oram examines the new concept of a "webcaster's right" that major Web portals are trying to introduce through a World Intellectual Property Organization treaty. The treaty would allow Web sites to control the dissemination of content they put up. Using the failed database protection laws as an example, and in the context of the carrier's desire to create a tiered Internet, Andy analyzes this new threat to the public domain. ------------------------------------- Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ --- > http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/etel/2006/01/13/the-problem-with-webcasting.html The Problem with Webcasting A cast that can be imprisoning by Andy Oram 01/13/2006 There's a new restriction on content waiting in the wings--a "webcaster's right" that allows websites to control the dissemination of content they put up. With this new privilege, they'll be able to prevent retransmission even if the copyright on that content is owned by somebody else--even, in fact, if that content was in the public domain. What is webcasting, and what will be the effects of this restriction? Nobody knows--except, one supposes, the large web portals pursuing the webcaster's right. I will try to ferret out what they want to do in the course of this article. First Came the Broadcaster's Right Unbeknownst to most Americans, in many European countries, TV and radio stations for some time had a "right" to control dissemination of their broadcasts. A U.S. delegation to the World Intellectual Property Organization, (peopled by members of the Copyright Office and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office), wants to bring these restrictions home. The harm this could do to public discourse hit me just recently when I attended a forum on wiretapping (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/8923), where several TV clips of George W. Bush's speeches were aired. The value of seeing these excerpts was incalculable. But if we had to adhere to the broadcasters' treaty, showing them would have been illegal. By copyright law, showing them in a non-profit educational setting was probably fair use--but it's not clear how any concept of fair use would apply to a broadcasters' treaty. Because it's often impossible to contact the original copyright holder, the right to retransmit broadcasts is essential to public discourse. Copyright is motivated by the laudable goal of encouraging authors' creativity and productivity--but what value do broadcasters add? There's precious little creativity involved in sending out a broadcast. Nevertheless, broadcasters are claiming an extra layer of rights--which adds an extra barrier to reuse. It's important to note that this legal maneuvering goes on in the context of publishers' growing technical restrictions on dissemination through digital rights management, and their attempts to plug the "analog hole" so that no rebroadcasts could take place anyway. But now we face the prospects of new barriers that have existed nowhere before now. Then Came the Webcaster's Right The U.S. WIPO delegation is also pushing for an extension of the broadcasters' control to the Web. The European broadcast laws don't cover the Web (although a European Union representative recently endorsed the U.S. proposal), so this is a new threat to the public domain. What would a webcaster's right mean? It would mean you couldn't retransmit content put up by someone else on the Web without permission. The proposal tries to indicate that the restriction covers only images and sound, but it's not clear that a line can be drawn between such content and other things, including text. At any rate, the idea of extending the broadcaster's right to the Web is bizarre and fundamentally out of sync with how the Web works. The whole basis of the Web is making links; people don't normally copy and retransmit material. I take it back. Copying and retransmission happens on the Web all the time. It's call caching, and it's crucial to the efficient operation of the Web. Even if the webcasting treaty leaves a loophole to allow caching, the treaty may hamper another promising way of reducing the load on servers: chained downloads that piggyback on intermediate nodes, the basis for useful protocols such as BitTorrent. The U.S. delegation is pushing for this strange new right under the catch-all rubric of "harmonizing" the Web with broadcasting, and, of course, that shibboleth of regulators, "technological neutrality." But because equating Web distribution with broadcasting is absurd on the face of it, one has to wonder what is really on the minds of the large portals who put so much energy into forcing this radical change on the public. The light went off in my head after hearing about plans by telephone companies to reserve parts of their internet bandwidth for premium content, rather like cable TV. This has been widely reported, and I blogged about it last December in an article titled "Can We Still Say that Nobody Owns the Internet?" (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/8785) Since then, on January 6, the Wall Street Journal reported that the carriers are trying to enter into special deals with major sites such as Google to offer those sites faster downloads for a price--and the websites are responding positively. Depending on your point of view, this is the natural next step in what you could either regard as: 1. A fair way to fund expensive network upgrades (except that phone companies have already won major pricing concessions from regulators, supposedly to fund those upgrades). 2. Or, an unprecedented coup by those who own the pipes to control what flows over those pipes. So the telephone companies, which have also become major internet providers, think they can intensify the commercial use of their internet connections by providing their own content (or content licensed from partners) at higher cost. Would it be too far-fetched to think that web portals have a similar idea? If they had their own premium content, they could essentially become like cable TV satellite radio companies. On January 9, the Wall Street Journal reported the next brick laid on the edifice, as Google announced it would offer TV shows and videos for a fee (restricted, to boot, by a DRM scheme). I don't mind premium content at special prices (hey, O'Reilly Media itself started a subscription service called Safari [http://safari.oreilly.com/]), but I don't see why a special webcaster's right is needed to provide it. Somebody is whispering poisonous thoughts in the ears of the portal owners. Suppose the next Wizard of Oz type of blockbuster goes over your wires ... You could get out of the nerve-wracking business of constant innovation and start to make an easy living off of cash cows ... Just imagine millions of captive viewers coming back to view your ads month after month. Expect to see a further proliferation of DRM systems and the erosion of fair use in the near future. I believe that the resurgence of internet entrepreneurialism--the wave of creative guys in lofts being bought out by the likes of Google, Yahoo, and America Online--shows that innovation has not run its course yet, and that we should keep competition vibrant. That means no new, artificial monopolies on content. The publishers who fund Safari are creating a successful business with a modest investment and a legal foundation in standard copyright. Other writers and artists may try to create their own online businesses with even smaller investments, and may therefore depend more on portals or "webcasters" for dissemination. In the balance of control between artists and portals, I vote for the current legal system that favors artists. I recently sent the U.S. delegates to WIPO the following document in a bid to ward off the webcaster's right--through the mechanism of throwing the matter before Congress. Submission to U.S. WIPO Delegation Concerning Webcast Rights This paper calls for Congress to take up the question of broadcast ownership rights on the internet, before they are proposed to the World Intellectual Property Organization by a United States delegation. The proposed extension of broadcast ownership to the internet represent a new feature in the dissemination of information, and a potentially disruptive change. Such a far-reaching grant of ownership should be subjected to particular scrutiny and diligently checked for ripple effects, because it consists of a sui generis right that can profoundly change the creation and distribution of content. Therefore, Congress should be the body in the U.S. to make the decision whether to request such an ownership change. To show the value of legislative deliberation, this paper will examine the history of another recent, sui generis right: laws restricting collections of information, also known as database protection. As with broadcasting and the internet, laws restricting collections of information were proposed by large companies with a valuable resource (CD-ROMs and other data listings used in many research areas), and were accompanied by claims that the current legal framework would eliminate the incentive to produce more such databases. The first victory for collections of information was in a directive discussed in the European Community in the early 1990s and formalized in a March 11, 1996 directive. It was subsequently made law in a dozen European countries. The scope and power of collections-of-information restrictions grew as the directive went through EC deliberations. (Nowadays, because the public interest sector in Europe is more organized and can make itself heard better within the EU, this directive might not have passed at all.) The original proposal was not a sui generis right, but a modest reinterpretation of unfair competition to cover commercial reuse of collections of information. But seeing an unobstructed road ahead of them, database manufacturers managed to extend the collections-of-information concept to the point where it gave them control over the reuse of facts in their databases, which no other law or treaty had done. The new right made it risky for users of databases to extract large amounts of information from a database, which frequently has to be done to generate statistics, check results reported in papers, and do other forms of research. Database manufacturers simultaneously pressed for collections-of-information laws in the United States. During the 1990s and early 2000s, laws regarding collections of information were introduced four or five times into Congress, and defeated every time. WIPO noted the loss of support for database protection and refused to take up the issue. What happened to the momentum? Congress listened to both sides, and realized that every ownership right in information represents a trade-off. Restricting access and reuse of information must be considered in light of the potential brake it puts on the research required to produce the next information breakthrough. This restriction could be justified only by evidence that there is widespread copying, and that it is inadequately prevented by other laws such as copyright and unfair competition. However, there is no evidence that such widespread copying has taken place. As reported by James Boyle, the European Commission recently conducted a study and reported that the presence of collections-of-information laws had no measurable impact on the production of databases. So the economic argument for collections-of-information laws is weak. And this result is easily to explain, because the most obvious kinds of copying (burning a CD-ROM, for instance) are prohibited by copyright law. Thus we can draw our first lesson from the collections-of-information history: when a new and far-reaching change concerning information rights is considered by a national legislative body, this puts the change through valuable scrutiny and allows, more than in non-elected international bodies, the true interests of both information producers and the general public to be heard. The national body provides more transparency in deliberations; more time and opportunity for key players such as non-governmental organizations and small, competitive producers to express their points of view; and more of a sense of responsibility toward constituents. Another valuable lesson can be gleaned from the history of collections-of-information laws: the danger of basing a legal framework on the exigencies of a particular industry at a particular time, especially in a fast-changing technological environment. Essentially, collections-of-information laws were conceived at a time when most databases were distributed by CD-ROM. A few services such as Lexis were online, but they had very restricted audiences. The model for a collection of information was a fixed set of data, sold as a tangible item. By the time the first European countries passed their collections-of-information laws, it was becoming apparent that this model was obsolete. Very few people get information nowadays by popping a CD-ROM into a computer; instead, they visit a website and enter a search term. There are several important impacts of this change on collections-of-information laws: * Copying becomes more difficult (rendering the laws even less relevant). * In regard to determining how much copying is too much, the new structure of information makes it hard to determine how much of the total collection was copied. * The frequent updating of information renders copies less valuable, reducing the incentive for someone to profit by making extensive copies. * Expiration times, which were designed to protect the public by placing deadlines on the restrictions imposed by database manufacturers, become moot because the manufacturers keep updating the data. Thus, technological and social change calls into question the value and relevance of collections-of-information laws. We can apply the same criteria to broadcasting laws on the internet. These are narrowly tailored to particular uses of information made by large news and portal websites, just as the collections-of-information laws were tailored to the distribution of data on CD-ROM. But what new technologies will come along after the Web? Could broadcast laws hamper their development and adoption? Who will be the information providers and distributors in the next generation of new media, and will they need or benefit from broadcast protection? How will the locking up of content in a broadcast treaty affect the dynamic and free-flowing innovation currently represented by weblogs, wikis, podcasts, and other media yet to be invented? And what about the assumptions behind the broadcast treaty? Is putting up a web page comparable to broadcasting a program over television or satellite? Few people redistribute web content; instead, they make a link to it. However, useful applications exist for reducing the strains on servers by sending data hop by hop between user systems, piggy-backing on intermediate nodes to distribute streams and large data transfers. This is just one example of potential innovations that might be squelched by overreaching laws on webcasting. This issue calls for careful consideration and views from all sides. Congress is the body most suited to undertake this examination in the U.S.. For More Information EFF material on webcasting and the broadcasting treaty in general: http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/broadcasting_treaty/ Article by James Love, director of Consumer Project on Technology, on the webcast treaty: "A UN/WIPO Plan to Regulate Distribution of Information on the Internet": http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/a-unwipo-plan-to-regulat_b_11480.html My article on collections of information: "The Sap and the Syrup of the Information Age: Coping with Database Protection Laws:" http://www.praxagora.com/andyo/professional/collection_law.html Update on European database treaty by law professor James Boyle: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/99610a50-7bb2-11da-ab8e-0000779e2340.html Andy Oram (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/36) is an editor for O'Reilly Media, specializing in Linux and free software books, and a member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. His web site is www.praxagora.com/andyo. From hbs.law at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 14:14:21 2006 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 14:14:21 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Software Freedom Law Center.. Message-ID: <8b60429e0601190044l3b3376e6pd50f3474d43438a8@mail.gmail.com> Hi, I guess most of you might now about this, but may be newbies can use it. http://www.softwarefreedom.org/ Hasit They describe themselves as below: We provide legal representation and other law-related services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software. Free and Open Source Software ("FOSS") is maturing at a rapid pace. The FOSS production ecosystem, once dominated by a few small not-for-profit entities and individual contributors, now includes a global array of individuals, not-for-profit entities, and commercial developers and redistributors. In this mixed-model organizational setting, all FOSS developers require an environment in which liability and other legal issues do not impede their important public service work. The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) provides legal representation and other law-related services to protect and advance FOSS Usual names running it are: Eben Moglen, Chairman Professor of Law and Legal History at Columbia University Law School and General Counsel of the Free Software Foundation Diane M. Peters, Director General Counsel of Open Source Development Labs ("OSDL"), the central body dedicated to accelerating the use of Linux for enterprise computing. Lawrence Lessig, Director Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society Daniel J. Weitzner, Director Director of the World Wide Web Consortium's ("W3C") Technology and Society activities where he is responsible for development of technology standards that enable the web to address social, legal, and public policy concerns such as privacy, free speech, security, protection of minors, authentication, intellectual property and identification. From Boris.Rotenberg at IUE.it Thu Jan 19 17:56:43 2006 From: Boris.Rotenberg at IUE.it (Rotenberg, Boris) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 13:26:43 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] OSI-supported call for papers A2K conference References: <20060119110153.CB92C28DC5C@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <23AC77D3C647384BA97ABF855795ACE9013D4045@MAILSRV2.iue.private> OSI Supported Call for Papers – IJCLP ISSUE on Access to Knowledge The Yale Law School Information Society Project (ISP) and the International Journal of Communications Law & Policy (IJCLP) are pleased to announce a special call for papers supported through a grant from the Open Society Institute (OSI), in conjunction with the Access to Knowledge (A2K) Conference taking place on April 21-23, 2006 at Yale Law School. The OSI has kindly agreed to support the IJCLP to attract contributions for its Special Fall 2006 Issue on A2K, from those countries listed as developing and transition countries. The complete list of countries included in this call is available at http://www.soros.org/openaccess/grants-available.shtml#countries . We invite authors resident in any of these countries to submit papers to the journal in response to our latest call for papers and writing competition on A2K (see http://www.ijclp.org ). Any paper selected for publication will receive financial support from our OSI grant. Such support shall include a small stipend to each author in addition to free editorial processing by the Journal. Please note that authors who submit papers for this call are also eligible for the writing competition awards. Submissions for publication under the terms of this OSI grant must be received at the latest by noon EST, May 1st, 2006. Papers may be submitted on any A2K-related issue, provided that they lie within the central focus of the IJCLP – communications law & policy. All submissions should be written in English in .rtf or .pdf format. They should conform to academic citation standards, be no longer than 25,000 words, and include an abstract of up to 250 words. Submissions should be e-mailed simultaneously to the lead editors of the IJCLP, Simone Francesco Bonetti (simo.bonetti [at] tiscalinet [dot] it) and Sudhir Krishnaswamy (krishnaswamysudhir [at] gmail [dot] com). Inquiries may be addressed to any of the above. -------------- next part -------------- ***** NOTE: An attachment named winmail.dat was deleted from this message because it possibly contained a windows executable or other potentially dangerous file type. Contact admin at sarai.net for more information. From hbs.law at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 23:49:52 2006 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 23:49:52 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Private Capital Almost Invented the Web... Message-ID: <8b60429e0601191019n26619d93y1056ebf8f89c8211@mail.gmail.com> Hi All, One last post before I go into hibernation and get something written down on real paper rather than this bottomless world of emails. Most people think that WWW was created only because of an "open" and "free" environment of information exchange. The emphasis is on "only because". This is not true. The concepts of Hypertext and linking were created by a group funded by private capital of Autodesk and led by a visionary Ted Nelson. The project was called Xanadu. Below is a wikipedia entry for it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext/Xanadu. And if you want a cross-check read the Autodesk's co-founder's comments in an interview on Nerd TV here: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/nerdtv/transcripts/007.html . The richness of Nelson's ideas is breathtaking and the fact that he thought about this in late 60s and 70s is just mind-blowing. Those who think that a free-for-all utopian software world would be better than than a mixed private-public-domain combination should make a note of this. Chao Hasit Project Xanadu was founded by Ted Nelson in 1960 as the original hypertext project. It was referred to by Wired Magazine as "longest-running vaporware story in the history of the computer industry": the first attempt at implementation began in 1960, but it wasn't until 1998 that (incomplete) software was released. In the meantime, the World Wide Web came into being, fulfilling many of the project's underlying visions. Contents [hide] History During his first year as a graduate student at Harvard, Nelson began implementing the system which contained the basic outline of what would become Project Xanadu: a word processor capable of storing multiple versions, and displaying the differences between these versions. Though he did not complete this implementation, a mock up of the system proved sufficient to inspire interest in others. On top of this basic idea, Nelson wished to facilitate "nonsequential writing", where the user could choose their own path through an electronic document. He built upon this idea in a paper to the ACM in 1965, calling the new idea "zippered lists". These zippered lists would allow compound documents to be formed from pieces of other documents, an idea he would later refer to as transclusion. In 1967, while working for Harcourt, Brace he named his idea Xanadu, in honour of the poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Ironically, Xanadu was also the name of the never-completed mansion of Citizen Kane in the Orson Welles film of the same name. Ted Nelson published his visionary ideas in his 1974 book Computer Lib/Dream Machines and the 1981 Literary Machines. Computer Lib/Dream Machines is written in a non-sequential fashion: it is a compilation of Nelson's random thoughts about computing, among other topics. The books are printed back to back, to be flipped between. Computer Lib contains Nelson's thoughts on topics which angered him, Dream Machines discusses his hopes for the potential of computers to assist the arts. In 1972, Cal Daniels completed the first demo version of the Xanadu software on a computer Nelson had rented for the purpose, though Nelson soon ran out of money. In 1974, with the advent of computer networking, Nelson revised his thoughts about Xanadu into a centralised source of information which he dubbed a "docuverse". In the summer of 1979, Nelson led the latest group of his followers, Roger Gregory, Mark Miller and Stuart Greene, to Swarthmore. In a house rented by Gregory, they hashed out their ideas for Xanadu; but at the end of the summer the group went their separate ways. Miller and Gregory created an addressing system based on transfinite numbers which they called tumblers, which allowed any part of a file to be referenced. The group continued their work, almost to the point of bankruptcy. In 1983, however, Nelson met John Walker, founder of Autodesk, at a conference for the people mentioned in Steven Levy's Hackers, and the group started working on Xanadu with Autodesk's financial backing. While at Autodesk, the group, lead by Gregory, completed a version of the software, written in the C programming language, though the software didn't work as well as they wanted. However, this version of Xanadu was successfully demonstrated at the Hacker's Conference and generated considerable interest. Then a newer group of programmers, hired from Xerox PARC, used the problems with this software as justification to rewrite the software in Smalltalk. This effectively split the group into two factions, and the decision to rewrite put a deadline imposed by Autodesk out of the team's reach. In August 1992, Autodesk divested the Xanadu group, which became the Xanadu Operating Company, which struggled due to internal conflicts and lack of investment. Charles S. Smith, the founder of a company called Memex (the name of the hypertext system designed by Vannevar Bush), hired many of the Xanadu programmers and licensed the Xanadu technology, though Memex soon faced financial difficulties, and the then-unpaid programmers left, taking the computers with them. (The programmers were eventually paid.) At around this time, Tim Berners-Lee was developing the World Wide Web. In 1998, Nelson released the source code to Xanadu as Project Udanax, in the hope that the techniques and algorithms used could help to overturn some software patents. [edit] The influence of Xanadu Many of Project Xanadu's proposed features have found their way into other hypertext systems, including the World Wide Web and WikiWiki systems. Though lacking in the scope proposed by Nelson, transclusion is practised on the web. HTML's IFRAME element allows full web pages to be included within other pages, RSS aggregators provide compound web pages which consist of items from several locations, and the utopic/dystopic Googlezon's autogenerated stories is an idea on how transclusion will become more and more widespread. Though micropayments have been slow to take off, PayPal is slowly gaining acceptance on the web. [edit] The web versus Xanadu There are several reasons why the World Wide Web gained the popularity it now enjoys, while Project Xanadu remains a relatively obscure piece of computing history. * Complexity vs. Simplicity Project Xanadu contains many complex ideas. Transclusion in Xanadu allows documents to contain any part of any other document, whereas the web merely allows linking to complete documents. The web is compatible with existing file system ideas, while Xanadu would possibly require the use of complicated databases, which may be difficult to maintain. * Copyright Xanadu's model of transclusion might have proven unpopular with authors. Despite the facilities for authors of documents to be paid when part of their work was transcluded in another's document, there seems to be no guarantee that the authors of these documents would receive proper credit in the transcluding work. Many authors object to their work being used as the basis of the sort of derivative works which transclusion would allow, but feel comfortable with having their complete work distributed on the web. * Availability Perhaps the greatest factor is that, quite simply, the web was there, and it worked, while Project Xanadu is still incomplete. From sunil at mahiti.org Fri Jan 20 05:05:15 2006 From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 00:35:15 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] IDRC adopts OA Message-ID: <1137713715.8301.225.camel@localhost.localdomain> IDRC Champions Intellectual Platform for Developing Countries Ottawa, Canada, December 23, 2005 Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is pleased to announce plans to create an Open Archive, the first among Canadian research funding organizations. The Open Archive will provide full access over the Internet to IDRC's rich research archive. In addition to making information more freely available, this initiative will provide IDRC-funded researchers with a much-needed outlet to publish and showcase their work. The world of scholarly communications is rapidly changing. The emerging culture of protecting intellectual property, soaring costs of accessing research literature, and difficulties in having research published in traditional journals are restricting the development of research capacity in the South. The Open Archive will help Southern researchers to engage in the international dialogue on important development issues and increase the impact of their research. Throughout its 35-year history, IDRC has believed that to bring about positive change in people's lives, knowledge should be shared. Research results and documents generated by IDRC-supported projects, IDRC recipients, and IDRC staff represent a tangible intellectual output of the Centre's mandate. The Open Archive will streamline and centralize the capture of IDRC project outputs and research documents. It will raise the visibility and facilitate the retrieval of the vast array of IDRC materials by consolidating them in a well-managed, indexed, secure, and permanent location. As a first step, IDRC will build a demonstration model in early 2006. By creating an Open Archive, IDRC promotes transparency of its results-based research and participates in the global movement to remove barriers - economic, social, and geographic - to the sharing of knowledge. -30- About IDRC Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is one of the world's leading institutions in the generation and application of new knowledge to meet the challenges of international development. For more than 30 years, IDRC has worked in close collaboration with researchers from the developing world to build healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous societies. For information: Isabelle Bourgeault-Tassé (613) 236-6163, ext. 2343 ibourgeault-tasse at idrc.ca http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum -- Sunil Abraham, sunil at mahiti.org http://www.mahiti.org "Vijay Kiran" IInd Floor, 314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA Ph/Fax: +91 80 51150580. Mob: (91) 9342201521 UK: (44) 02000000259 From hbs.law at gmail.com Fri Jan 20 11:34:02 2006 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 11:34:02 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Traditional Knowledge: Intellectual Property to be Protected? Message-ID: <8b60429e0601192204o776ecb1cwd18c0110793aac39@mail.gmail.com> [January 19, 2006] Traditional Knowledge: Intellectual Property to be Protected? (Comtex Global News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)WASHINGTON, Jan 19, 2006 (U.S. Newswire via COMTEX) --In advance of next week's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Spain, the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) hosted a policy luncheon yesterday to explore some the issues at stake in the debate over "traditional knowledge." Event host Dr. Merrill Matthews, resident scholar at IPI, opened the conference by noting that traditional knowledge (TK) "raises new questions about what is and isn't intellectual property." Doug Neumann, senior conservation officer with the U.S. State Department, explained that the U.S. is against patent disclosure (i.e. requiring patent applicants to disclose the origin of genetic resources in inventions) in part because it affects product development. "The big question is how we get any sort of TK protective systems and IPR (intellectual property rights) systems to work in harmony so that they minimize any grey areas," Neumann said. "We believe (the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)) has the technical expertise to look at these issues rather than the CBD, which is more environmentally focused." Presenting the NGO perspective, David Waskow, international program director for Friends of the Earth, pointed out, "There are many folks who would agree with (the US') view. Where they would differ with the US in practice is that the U.S. has often pressed in trade agreements for countries to adopt certain kinds of intellectual property protection in ways that limit the ability of those national governments to in fact put the kinds of protections they would like to see in place." "Dr. Ananda Chakrabarty, professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and born in India, pointed out that the success of India's recent economic growth is tied to its product patents. "Now that India has signed the TRIPPS agreement...there is a great opportunity for countries like India -- (including) China, Brazil and other developing countries -- to accept the fact that the future looks good. They will be able to generate new products to bring to the world market." The conference did not seek to resolve all of the issues raised by traditional knowledge and intellectual property, but it did set the stage for future dialogue. ------ The Institute for Policy Innovation is an independent think tank based out of Dallas, Texas. http://www.usnewswire.com Sonia Blumstein of the Institute for Policy Innovation, 202-213-0379 or soniab at ipi.org, Web: http://www.IPI.org From vinay at nls.ac.in Fri Jan 20 15:47:20 2006 From: vinay at nls.ac.in (Vinay Aravind) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 15:47:20 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Commons-Law] fun with patents In-Reply-To: <20060119110153.CB92C28DC5C@mail.sarai.net> References: <20060119110153.CB92C28DC5C@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <36920.59.94.109.43.1137752240.squirrel@59.94.109.43> Following piece from FastCompany.com....the beautiful American patent system steps in to provide occupation, and revenues, for an otherwise useless company. Read and weep. vinay Patently Aggressive Forgent Networks sues software giants for patent infringement. Is it protecting inventors--or driving a stake through the heart of innovation? From: Issue 102 | January 2006 | Page 79 By: Jennifer Reingold It's a gorgeous sun-soaked day in southwest Austin. At a generic glass office building in a random corporate park, the indoor waterfall gushes a merry greeting. In the light-filled boardroom of Forgent Networks, CEO Dick Snyder, a trim, freckled man with a broad smile, puts out a friendly hand. It sure doesn't seem like the gates of hell. But for a lot of people in the software industry, this is Hades, and the seemingly mild-mannered Snyder is the three-headed dog at its door. That's because Forgent, which used to be an enterprise software company, has a new and quite profitable business strategy: Sue, sue, sue, and when all else fails, sue again. Forgent holds patents, the most significant of which, Patent No. 4,698,672--fondly known as just '672--is allegedly being violated by virtually every company that has ever used JPEG image compression, from camera manufacturers to software designers to cell-phone makers. In the three years since Forgent decided there was more gold in subpoenas than in software, the company has collected a staggering $105 million in licensing fees from the likes of Sanyo, Sony, and 48 other companies. Many of those that haven't paid up--a panoply of household names including Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard--have found themselves part of a massive, 41-company lawsuit that will begin proceedings later this year. Forgent has filed another suit covering a different patent related to the digital video recorder against 15 major companies including Time Warner and Comcast; that will go to court in 2007. At a time when rampant piracy, the open-source movement, and the spread of technological expertise abroad have led to collective national hand-wringing over the state of American innovation, it's worth thinking about another challenge: the ever-increasing legal battles over who owns an idea. Forgent and its ilk--sometimes snidely referred to as "patent trolls"--have roiled the software industry. (The troll epithet has also been hurled at companies such as Acacia Research and NPT Inc., the latter of which is suing Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry [see Squashing the BlackBerry?]). "I always thought 'patent gangster' was more appropriate," says Scott Watkins, a patent attorney at Steptoe & Johnson, speaking generally. "It's the old protection racket." Some say Forgent's fight-back approach is the only recourse for small innovators against rich companies that try to steal their intellectual property. Others see Forgent as the exploiter, taking advantage of antiquated laws to hold creative enterprises up for ransom. "The Forgent business model has caused people to stop innovating," says an inventor in Forgent's market who didn't want to be identified for fear of legal retaliation. "It has had a chilling effect on anything new." Back in the bright boardroom, it's hard to believe that this deserted suburban office is ground zero in the war over intellectual property. The place looks like it should have tumbleweeds rolling through it, with just 20 employees working out of an office building that once held 300 (most of the space has been subleased). It doesn't feel like a normal business, and that's because it isn't--a point made crystal clear when the public-relations guy turns on a tape recorder to ensure there's evidence should I accidentally misquote anyone. "The ones that scream the loudest are also the ones on the other side . . . asking people to pay them for their patent work." Believe me, I won't. Though Snyder, a 61-year-old former executive at HP and Dell, has a slow, folksy patter, he's also a competitive triathlete who thinks the infamous "Escape From Alcatraz" race, featuring an open-water swim in the 50-degree San Francisco Bay, is a great stress reliever. His big adversaries, he points out, are plenty aggressive when it comes to defending their own intellectual property. "The ones that scream the loudest," he says calmly, "are also the ones on the other side of the fence asking people to pay them for their patent work or asking them not to infringe on their patents." Snyder says he's simply doing his fiduciary duty by capitalizing on his shareholders' assets. Not that there are so many assets to pick from these days. Forgent's previous incarnation, a videoconferencing company called VTEL, fell on hard times in the late 1990s. In 2001, board member Snyder was brought in to right the company. He dropped videoconferencing and tried to reinvent Forgent as a software business, but that didn't work too well either. The company lost $6.1 million in fiscal 2002. Cash-crunched, he and his board essentially began rummaging through the company closets--and found a treasure. Inventors working for Compression Labs Inc., a company VTEL bought, had registered for patents on a process that Forgent now claims is used in JPEG compression. Enter the briefcases and cuff links. Snyder first aimed his guns at Japan, a less litigious place than the United States, in hopes of setting a precedent. Forgent sent letters demanding a one-time license fee to cover alleged past and future infringement. The strategy worked: Staying out of court, Sanyo paid $15 million and Sony more than $16 million in fiscal 2002. Emboldened, Snyder moved on to the U.S. market, going after more than a thousand companies that have used the JPEG in their products. For a while, Snyder used the settlements to fund other Forgent operations. After paying the lawyers their contingency fees of 50% or so, Forgent plowed much of the rest into its Alliance software business. But if '672 was a diamond, the software business was cubic zirconium. In fiscal 2004, Snyder finally wrote it down, and the company posted a $20.1 million loss. Forgent was left with two businesses: the $3 million NetSimplicity, which offers meeting-planning software, and the lawsuit business. That means that for Forgent, licensing is the name of the game. Patent law allows a company to force a violator to stop producing the item in question and pay compensatory damages, which can be tripled in the case of willful infringement. But that would kill the golden goose. "We want everyone to use this thing," says Michael Noonan, Forgent's senior director of investor relations. "The more ubiquitous it is out there, the better for us." That's what happened with Pegasus Imaging, which agreed to license Forgent's technology in October 2002. "One thing you have to do is to look at the risk," says Jack Berlin, Pegasus's president. "We could have been exposed to millions of dollars in claims. When you see that sort of ratio, it was a no-brainer." No one really knows whether or not Forgent's patents will hold up in court; the company could collect anywhere from another $100 million-plus, according to an estimate from research firm J.M. Dutton & Associates, to zero. In October 2005 alone, three companies, including Research in Motion, decided to take out licenses from Forgent for undisclosed amounts. Yet Forgent could also be bluffing, hoping that others will decide to fold first. If so, it has met a tough opponent in Microsoft, which sued Forgent even though Forgent hadn't yet sued it ("Microsoft is known to be very litigious," says Snyder, with no trace of irony). It charges that Forgent's patent was obtained fraudulently. "Microsoft did not come up with anything new," says Snyder. "I'd point to $100 million-plus that says other people recognized [the patent] was valid." Microsoft wouldn't comment. Other opponents are coming out of the woodwork as well, such as the nonprofit Public Patent Foundation, which on November 16 filed its own request that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office revoke the patent altogether. "I believe that the patent is invalid," says Dan Ravicher, the foundation's executive director, and it is "causing substantial public harm" by adding extra costs to an already taxed system for inventions and by threatening the JPEG standard that is now part of the public domain. Some critics even question whether software patents like Forgent's ought to exist. "Software is a thought process," says Tom DeMarco, a fellow at the Cutter Business Technology Council, an IT consultancy. "To patent it is comparable to patenting induction or deduction." The European Union, for example, does not grant software patents. That's hardly on the horizon in the United States. The number of patents granted has exploded to 187,170 in 2004, up from 66,176 in 1980. There has been a similar explosion in lawsuits, which usually cost at least $2 million to defend if they go to trial. "Now you can make the case that it's driving innovation offshore," says DeMarco. "If you want to start a new software company that does something imaginative and wonderful, you have every incentive to start that company in Slovenia or China or a place that doesn't have these rules." In an attempt to stem the tide of patent-related lawsuits, in June 2005, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) introduced a bill, the Patent Reform Act of 2005. But the bill has stalled in the House, in part because--as Snyder points out--many companies benefit from the current laws even as they decry them. Microsoft has decided to pursue an aggressive strategy of filing for 3,000 patents in fiscal 2005 alone, either as a defense or in hopes of bringing in licensing revenue. And Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft's former CTO, has created a company, Intellectual Ventures, that has purchased as many as 5,000 patents in the past few years. For Forgent, though, the party is winding down. The good old '672 patent will expire in October 2006--after which Forgent can still collect for past infringement, but nothing going forward. "It's a past gravy train," says Watkins, "but they're not looking at a future gravy train." That's also why Forgent launched a new front in the battle in July 2005, suing 15 cable companies and cable-box manufacturers. For all of Snyder's bravado, he seems a tad embarrassed that his job is more about litigating than innovating. "The whole notion that [we] are just a thorn in the side of humanity," he says, "I don't think they understand how we arrived here. I view this as a metamorphosis, a way in which to responsibly take the company through a period of time to generate resources and to become something else. If you said, 'Is this what you want to do for the next 15 years,' I'd probably say no." If he's right, thousands of software executives will probably wipe their brows in relief. But the lawyers will weep. Jennifer Reingold (jreingold at fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior writer From lawrence at altlawforum.org Fri Jan 20 16:49:38 2006 From: lawrence at altlawforum.org (Lawrence Liang) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 16:49:38 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Patent Comic Message-ID: Hi all We have finished our last installation of our parody and spoof of the WIPO Comics. This one is on Patent Law You can download the comic from http://www.altlawforum.org/lawmedia/patent%20final.pdf You can also have a look at the original WIPO version at http://www.wipo.org/freepublications/en/patents/485/wipo_pub_485.pdf For those who are new on the list or missed our previous efforts, do have a loot at the ones on copyright and TM, which are available at http://www.altlawforum.org/lawmedia/TM.pdf http://www.altlawforum.org/lawmedia/CC.pdf For any further details and suggestions etc contact namita at altlawforum.org Enjoy, and do spread the word Lawrence From vinay at nls.ac.in Fri Jan 20 18:56:26 2006 From: vinay at nls.ac.in (Vinay Aravind) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 18:56:26 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Commons-Law] piracy calculator In-Reply-To: <20060120100253.993F128D905@mail.sarai.net> References: <20060120100253.993F128D905@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <39414.59.94.109.43.1137763586.squirrel@59.94.109.43> The following link [ http://qntm.org/owe ]leads to a 'piracy calculator.' Based on the amount of downloaded movies, songs etc, you have, it attempts to estimate the 'street value' of your 'illegal horde.' The interesting bit is the text below the calculator....particularly the last para...reproduced below Notes (you can probably skip this part) All costs are in US dollars. I have assumed that a movie costs $19.95, a videogame is $49.95, an album is 50 minutes long and costs $14.92, a TV season box set costs $39.99 and an isolated TV episode costs $3.70 (note: you cannot as far as I know buy isolated television episodes. But I think you should be able to and I think $3.70 would be a fair price). There are other ways to calculate the total based on e.g. how many MP3s you actually have; I just picked the one I felt was most accurate. Nevertheless there is still a margin of error of at least 25%. The format for entering your music total is hh:mm:ss. Anime movies and episodes count just like regular movies and TV. Ditto pornography. Software is not included here because the price of a piece of ripped-off software can vary from zero to a thousand dollars and higher. A TV season of less than about 10 episodes only counts as .5 of a season. And remember not to count material which you bought legally! Disclaimer Put it this way... my hoard is worth $9003.34. The moral of this story Many of you who actually used this thing will have come up with totals in four digits or higher. But do you actually HAVE that much money? Have you ever? And if you did have the money, would you have bought all that stuff legitimately? Even if it was a simple download? I doubt it. The point I'm making is that only a small percentage of illegal downloads are in fact lost sales. Piracy isn't theft. It's piracy. There's a big difference. From lawrence at altlawforum.org Sat Jan 21 09:59:09 2006 From: lawrence at altlawforum.org (Lawrence Liang) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 09:59:09 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] piracy calculator In-Reply-To: <39414.59.94.109.43.1137763586.squirrel@59.94.109.43> Message-ID: Hi Vinay Thanks a ton for this link, it was great and very very entertaining, it has been a very important 'moral lesson' for me. After all those years of catechism and moral science classes in school failed, this one has really worked. I have now decided to turn over a new leaf and become completely legit after the shock I received when I found out that my arrears is slightly less modest than yours, standing at around $1,26,589 owed towards the creative industries.... So I have now decided to quit my job at ALF and start applying to the different corporate and IP law firms in the US.....and hopefully in a few years time I should be able to pay for my past sins Lawrence PS Are you aware of any job openings?, otherwise I could start keeping aside 3000 rupees a month, and should be able to repay in 158 years On 1/20/06 6:56 PM, "Vinay Aravind" wrote: > The following link [ http://qntm.org/owe ]leads to a 'piracy calculator.' > Based on the amount of downloaded movies, songs etc, you have, it attempts > to estimate the 'street value' of your 'illegal horde.' The interesting > bit is the text below the calculator....particularly the last > para...reproduced below > > Notes (you can probably skip this part) > > All costs are in US dollars. I have assumed that a movie costs $19.95, a > videogame is $49.95, an album is 50 minutes long and costs $14.92, a TV > season box set costs $39.99 and an isolated TV episode costs $3.70 (note: > you cannot as far as I know buy isolated television episodes. But I think > you should be able to and I think $3.70 would be a fair price). There are > other ways to calculate the total based on e.g. how many MP3s you actually > have; I just picked the one I felt was most accurate. Nevertheless there > is still a margin of error of at least 25%. > > The format for entering your music total is hh:mm:ss. Anime movies and > episodes count just like regular movies and TV. Ditto pornography. > Software is not included here because the price of a piece of ripped-off > software can vary from zero to a thousand dollars and higher. A TV season > of less than about 10 episodes only counts as .5 of a season. And remember > not to count material which you bought legally! > Disclaimer > > Put it this way... my hoard is worth $9003.34. > The moral of this story > > Many of you who actually used this thing will have come up with totals in > four digits or higher. But do you actually HAVE that much money? Have you > ever? And if you did have the money, would you have bought all that stuff > legitimately? Even if it was a simple download? I doubt it. > > The point I'm making is that only a small percentage of illegal downloads > are in fact lost sales. Piracy isn't theft. It's piracy. There's a big > difference. > > _______________________________________________ > commons-law mailing list > commons-law at sarai.net > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law From dkapoor at POLYPLEX.com Sat Jan 21 13:42:45 2006 From: dkapoor at POLYPLEX.com (Deepak Kapoor) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 13:42:45 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] EBC injunction against Manupatra Message-ID: <4E8D43F8989F084CBF554D4E2FADCD283B41CC@polymail.POLYPLEX.COM> The injunction stands vacated vide order of Delhi HC dt. 12/12/05. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060121/60753315/attachment.html From viyyer at sarai.net Sat Jan 21 15:59:35 2006 From: viyyer at sarai.net (V Vivek) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 15:59:35 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] [Fwd: [ilugd] Other-Legal Question regarding download of files] Message-ID: <43D20D0F.8000007@sarai.net> Forwarding to commons-law mailing list. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [ilugd] Other-Legal Question regarding download of files Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 15:03:31 +0530 From: ramnarayan.k at gmail.com Reply-To: The Linux-Delhi mailing list To: ilugd Hi I was curious about the legal aspect of the following situation. Suppose the website of X organization has a section for downloads and a download is available of a files of documents and publications which have also been printed and published and is being sold as well. And that this download section has no restrictions, any one can find it and make a download (no passwords , no registering etc). And Person *C* after downloading the file makes it available on another website. Then what are the legal implications Can the original website owner prevent such a move. Further if *X's* site does not have any legal disclaimers saying anything about downloads etc what effect would it have. The printed out documents may themselves be Copyrighted under various laws etc but if people have access to a scan of the same and do not share the print out or display it in supposed gross voilation of piracy of printed material then what are the implications. And what happens when the original site withdraws the download and it continues to be available at other non official location. And finally what happens if someone from outside the source country places such files as a download , what laws are applicable. thanks ram _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd at lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd at lists.linux-delhi.org/ From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Mon Jan 23 09:39:53 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 23:09:53 -0500 Subject: [Commons-Law] EFF: RI/MPAA replacing Fair Use with "customary historic use" Message-ID: <43D45711.3A728FC6@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: pho: EFF: RI/MPAA replacing Fair Use with "customary historic use" Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 11:17:09 -0500 From: Campbell Vertesi Reply-To: campbell at vertesi.com To: Pho http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060121-6025.html Big Content would like to outlaw things no one has even thought of yet 1/21/2006 1:06:35 AM, by Hannibal The EFF's Deeplinks section has a pretty alarming post about the RIAAand MPAA's attempts to freeze the progress of consumer electronicstechnology and then start turning back the clock on all of us. Fairuse, meet your successor: "customary historic use." The post points to broadcast flag draft legislation sponsored bySenator Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) that contains provisions which appear tolimit digital broadcast media reception devices to "customary historicuse of broadcast content by consumers to the extent such use isconsistent with applicable law and that prevents redistribution ofcopyrighted content over digital networks." In other words, if it doesanything heretofore unheard of with the digital content that itreceives, then it's illegal. And if it does anything "customary" thatcould also possibly lead to unauthorized redistribution, then it'salso illegal. So all the bases are covered! Can it really be that bad? We already knew that the proposed HD radioprovisions are just awful and absurdly draconian, but can Big Contentreally be trying to put a blanket freeze on innovation and outlaw anypossible novel use at all of copyrighted digital broadcast content? Idownloaded the PDF and read through it, and it does indeed look thatway. There are a few relevant sections, so let's take a look at them. Here's the first major section in which the phrase "customary historicuse" is used: (2) CRITERIA FOR CONTENT OF REGULATIONS – In achieving the goal ofpreventing the indiscriminate unauthorized copying and redistributionof certain digital audio content over digital networks, any proposedregulations to govern digital audio broadcast transmissions anddigital audio receiving devices shall – (a) require Commission licensees that transmit digital audiobroadcast signals or that manufacture digital audio receiving devicesto implement a Broadcast Flag technology to protect digital audiocontent; (b) permit customary historic use of broadcast content by consumersto the extent such use is consistent with applicable law; (c) not interfere with the deployment and spread of digital audiobroadcasting to the maximum extent possible; and, (d) to the extent that such regulations cover devices, cover onlydevices that are capable, without any hardware alterations oradditions, of receiving digital audio signals when such devices aresold by a manufacturer. (e) not interfere with the monitoring of or gaining access tomusical works contained in broadcasts by performing rightsorganizations for the purpose of collecting or distributing royalties. This sounds vaguely ominous, but not truly earth-shattering, mostlybecause it's phrased positively. Unfortunately, by the time you'redone with the document you understand that it's worse than it looks atfirst. At issue in the legislation are two types of implementation-agnostic"technologies": 1) a "broadcast flag" technology that's embedded inthe digital signal by the sender and that tells the receiver what itcan and cannot do with the digital content; and 2) a "secure movingtechnology" that the draft legislation defines as follows: (b) "Secure Moving Technology" is a technology that permits contentcovered by the Broadcast Flag to be transferred from a broadcastreceiver to another device for rendering in accordance with customaryhistoric use of broadcast content by consumers to the extent such useis consistent with applicable law and that prevents redistribution ofcopyrighted content over digital networks." There's the nub of it. The broadcast flag alone isn't enough, becausewhat happens when you want to actually listen to the audio that thedevice has received? Unless you've got headphones attached directly toyour digital radio, you're going to want to move the signal from thedigital radio to a stereo receiver (for "rendering" as the draft putsit), even if you're not necessarily planning on ripping the music anduploading it to eDonkey. This where the "secure moving technology"kicks in. The "secure moving technology" ensures that whatever you do with thesignal that leaves the digital broadcast receiver, it definitely won'tbe anything you can't already do right now. Furthermore, even somethings that you can currently do will be outlawed if those thingscould facilitate piracy. This probably means that such devices won'thave much in the way of hi-fi analog outs. After you read the above definition of "secure moving technology" andthen go further back and look at the first section that I quotedabove, that first "customary historic use" passage starts to make moresense and to look more insidious. From reading the whole draft, itappears that the "customary historic use" stipulation governs playbackon any device, whether it's an attached device or the receiver itself.The broadcast flag is embedded in the signal like a special tag thatdefines the content's terms of use, while the secure moving technologyacts as a sort of DRM wrapper/sandbox for the content that ensuresthat any (compliant) playback device not only respects therestrictions dictated by the broadcast flag but also does absolutelynothing novel or unexpected with the content that the broadcast flag'sterms did not or could not anticipate. So, if you were planning to launch a startup and make millions off thecoming digital broadcast media revolution by inventing the next iPodor by combining digital radio with Web 2.0 and VoIP and Skype and RSSand WiFi mesh networks, then forget about it. When digital broadcastnirvana finally arrives, the only people who'll be legally authorizedto make money off of music and movies are the middlemen at the RIAAand the MPAA. But I hate to end a post on a sour note, so here's a thought to cheeryou up. This "customary historic use" thing reminds me of something Ionce read in a history of Japan that I picked up on sale at Borders.(I'd give the title, but I'm not at home so I don't have the bookhandy. It wasn't very good anyway.) At the height of their culturalpower, the samurai were authorized to kill peasants for an insanenumber of reasons, including "acting in an other than expectedmanner." So look on the bright side: at least we don't live in feudalJapan... yet. ----------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- This is the Pho mailing list. Help? Write griffin at onehouse.com or johnparres at yahoo.com From hbs.law at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 09:54:35 2006 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 09:54:35 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] piracy calculator (Vinay Aravind) Message-ID: <8b60429e0601222024q2b023bedu214acc53c70457b4@mail.gmail.com> Hi All, Any pointers as to proposals for a variable royalty or variable pricing systems around? I am interested in copyright models that deliver variable priced copyrighted material to avoid forcing people to pirate the protected stuff. Thanks-in-advance. Hasit From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Mon Jan 23 10:41:19 2006 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 10:41:19 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] piracy calculator (Vinay Aravind) In-Reply-To: <8b60429e0601222024q2b023bedu214acc53c70457b4@mail.gmail.com> References: <8b60429e0601222024q2b023bedu214acc53c70457b4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060123051119.GA16433@home.wki> Hasit seth said on Mon, Jan 23, 2006 at 09:54:35AM +0530,: > Any pointers as to proposals for a variable royalty or variable > pricing systems around? I am interested in copyright models that Microsoft seems to be the best example, with their different prices for different segments, like retail vendors / assemblersq, educational institutions, corporate/enterprise customers, etc. > deliver variable priced copyrighted material to avoid forcing people > to pirate the protected stuff. Thanks-in-advance. This is not likely the the reasons for the market segmentation mentioned above. That strategy is more result of a monopolistic practise. Pricing copyrighted goods has far been a function of markting acumen (which has been, and always will be, based on the ``ability to bear'') rather than from the perspective of ``willingness to pay''. -- Mahesh T. Pai || http://paivakil.blogspot.com DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. From vinay at nls.ac.in Mon Jan 23 18:05:57 2006 From: vinay at nls.ac.in (Vinay Aravind) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:05:57 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Variable Pricing/variable royalty In-Reply-To: <20060123110012.A7D6328DC2E@mail.sarai.net> References: <20060123110012.A7D6328DC2E@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <38703.59.94.109.43.1138019757.squirrel@59.94.109.43> Dear Hasit/Mahesh, I am not sure I understand how variable pricing would 'avoid forcing people to pirate protected stuff.' "Piracy" is just a free-market force...since there is no 'willingness to pay' the demanded price, on the part of the intended consumers of copyrighted material, either due to the belief that they are overpriced (or from unintended consumers, who will take anything that's free/cheap) the "pirates" step in to supply at the price where the consumers are willing to buy....Even if the pricing is variable, if it is above what I'd call the piracy threshold, then the "pirates" will have reason to exist....if it is below the piracy threshold, then the record companies/ publishers would be taking a massive hit on their obscene margins and we will all probably be living in a fantasy world. However, if by variable pricing you mean the iTunes model, then it's already there and doing rather well, apparently, and downloads are accounting for 6% of record company revenues worldwide (no-one's talking of the artistes though...funny). What other kind of variable pricing could there be? Mahesh pointed out MS as an instance of variable pricing, but I wonder if records and/or books can practically be sold with different pricing to different consumers. However, it's interesting that you speak of variable royalty, if there was to be a variable pricing model (like the MS model), it would necessarily entail a variable royalty model, where the royalty would vary depending on the end-use that a work is put to. This could also be a solution to the scourge of the 'collecting societies' like the Indian Performing Rights Society and Phonographic Performance Limited which are apparently hounding even weddings to collect license-fees(against the provisions of the Indian Copyright Act). But again, practicality? Cheers vinay PS. Lawrence, since you've reformed you can leave your 'horde' to me. I use cryptic language as I am afraid the patron saint of IP lawyers is trawling the web with bots and will send down bolts of lightning to strike down those openly endorsing 'piracy.' -------------------- > Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 09:54:35 +0530 > From: Hasit seth > > Hi All, > > Any pointers as to proposals for a variable royalty or variable > pricing systems around? I am interested in copyright models that > deliver variable priced copyrighted material to avoid forcing people > to pirate the protected stuff. Thanks-in-advance. > > Hasit > > From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Mon Jan 23 18:16:24 2006 From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T Pai) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 12:46:24 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Commons-Law] Variable Pricing/variable royalty In-Reply-To: <38703.59.94.109.43.1138019757.squirrel@59.94.109.43> Message-ID: <20060123124624.12432.qmail@web8508.mail.in.yahoo.com> --- Vinay Aravind wrote: > variable pricing, but I > wonder if records and/or books can practically be > sold with different > pricing to different consumers. - Paperback/hardbound for readers & libraries respectively. - recordings for personal use and for use in commercial establishments (hotels, etc- but of course, by explicit contract with the Copyright Society; and such recordings are not available off-shelf, afaict. Send instant messages to your online friends http://in.messenger.yahoo.com From the.solipsist at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 16:40:01 2006 From: the.solipsist at gmail.com (sol) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 16:40:01 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] 2 Live Crew frontman vs. 50 Cent Message-ID: <4785f1e20601240310h4bfc6901i@mail.gmail.com> Dear All, The irony of it all: 1989: 2 Live Crew samples Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" in their song "Pretty Woman", and intends it as a parody. The publisher, Acuff-Rose Music, which has rights over the song does not agree to their pre-release offer of payment of licensing fee and crediting the song's writers. Having gone ahead, they found themselves in the US Supreme Court, where they eventually won the case, having shown that their version was actually a parody of the original -- that the song "reasonably could be perceived as commenting on the original or criticizing it to some degree," -- and being the first instance of "fair use" being used for a case of sampling. 2006: The frontman of 2 Live Crew (Luther Campbell) (actually Richard C. Wolfe for Lil' Joe Wein Music) is sues 50 Cent for having ripped off the lyrics for "In Da Club" (and another song) from his 1994 song "It's Your Birthday". Perhaps this is another case of the artist himself not having a problem, and only the record company wanting its money (like the Negativland vs. U2 case). Also, check out http://www.illegal-art.org/, which amongst other things, has a section with information about copyrights cases in the audio industry. From Yahoo! News: ---------------------------------- *Fri Jan 20, 6:58 PM ET* MIAMI - Rapper 50 Cent stole the opening line for his 2003 hit "In Da Club" from a song by former 2 Live Crew frontman Luther Campbell, an attorney claims in a lawsuit. ADVERTISEMENT Richard C. Wolfe filed the copyright infringement lawsuit against Curtis James Jackson, aka 50 Cent, in Miami federal court last week on behalf of Lil' Joe Wein Music. 50 Cent only changed one word from the opening line of Campbell's song from "It's Your Birthday," Wolfe said — after repeating the word "go" several times, "Sheila" becomes "shorty" in the line, "Go shorty, it's your birthday." Campbell's song appeared on his 1994 solo album "Still a Freak for Life." "It's the melody, it's the pace, the style — everything about that one line is the same," Wolfe said. "We're entitled to a portion of the profits." Messages left Friday for Campbell and for 50 Cent's publicist, Dennis Dennehy, weren't immediately returned. Lil' Joe Wein Music holds the copyright to "It's Your Birthday" and other songs Campbell produced with his rap group 2 Live Crew and as a solo artist. Lil' Joe Wein Music is owned by Joseph Weinberger, an attorney who formerly represented Campbell. Campbell's song "I Like It, I love It" can also be heard on the 2003 DVD "50 Cent — The New Breed," the lawsuit claims. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages in addition to attorneys' fees and other legal costs. Wolfe won a $2.3 million judgment against Campbell in 1994 for another rapper who claimed Campbell withheld royalties. ------------------------- Cheers, Pranesh -- ______________ ------------ We are unhappy married, and unhappy unmarried. We are unhappy when alone, and unhappy in society: we are like hedge-hogs clustering together for warmth, uncomfortable when too closely packed, and yet miserable when kept apart. It is all very funny... the life of every individual is really always a tragedy; but gone through it in detail it has the character of a comedy. --Arthur Schopenhauer [1788 - 1860], German philosopher ------------ ______________ ô¿ô¬ the solipsist -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060124/b3a79c18/attachment.html From hbs.law at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 17:58:43 2006 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:58:43 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Variable Pricing/variable royalty (Vinay Aravind) Message-ID: <8b60429e0601240428v7fa2dc95h94b0f43617eab8bf@mail.gmail.com> Thanks Vinay and Mahesh. I was also looking for pointers to academic literature on this topic since I do not follow copyright law academic developments. Hasit From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Tue Jan 24 18:09:55 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 07:39:55 -0500 Subject: [Commons-Law] CFP: Fair Use Free Speech Documentary Competition Message-ID: <43D6201B.F4B5F62E@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> Fair Use Free Speech CALL FOR ENTRIES Deadline: May 1, 2006 Go to www.ufva.org for a flyer and entry forms UFVA is hosting a contest for the best short documentaries employing fair use, made by higher education students and faculty. Fair use is the legal use of other people's copyrighted work without permission or payment--in certain circumstances. Fair use ensures that freedom of speech survives, even though usually copyright holders have the right to control use of their material. The law does not specify exactly what fair use is, in order to leave a great deal of flexibility for different creative communities and changes over time. When in doubt, the courts turn to professional and creative practice and understanding. In recent years, documentary filmmakers have found that broadcasters and cablecasters, lawyers and insurers tell them that fair use is too hard to define, and therefore they cannot invoke it. Since fair use is interpreted by discipline and profession, working professional documentary filmmakers through their organizations established basic principles to make fair use more useable. That statement, along with more information, is available at centerforsocialmedia.org/fairuse. Entrants should employ fair use in quoting material in their documentaries, using the Documentary Filmmakers' Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use as a guide to their decision making. Get the statement at http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org For background, read Untold Stories: Creative Consequences of the Rights Clearance Culture for Documentary Filmmakers - http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/rock/finalreport.htm ELIGIBILITY: * Must have primary creative control of the work and have all rights and clearances for material not employed under fair use. · Work must be submitted in NTSC, DVD (DATA only) or mini dv CRITERIA * Work must be 5 minutes or less · Work must be a documentary in any genre, including but not limited to essay, satire, parody, historical, musical, and personal · It must employ fair use in quoting copyrighted material PRIZES * $1,000 faculty only plus one year membership to UFVA · $1,000 best co-production between faculty and student(s), plus one year membership to UFVA · $500 second prize co-production plus one year membership to UFVA · Honorable mentions: iPods plus one year membership to UFVA · Winners will be screened at the UFVA Conference in August, 2006 -- Jeremy Butler www.ScreenSite.org www.TVCrit.com www.AllThingsAcoustic.org Professor - TCF Dept - U Alabama ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.ScreenSite.org From Boris.Rotenberg at IUE.it Tue Jan 24 21:49:16 2006 From: Boris.Rotenberg at IUE.it (Rotenberg, Boris) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:19:16 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] OSI supported CFP -- IJCLP issue A2K References: <20060124110314.8F0E528DCA6@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <23AC77D3C647384BA97ABF855795ACE9013D4061@MAILSRV2.iue.private> ---sorry for cross-posting--- Dear All, If you've already received this message, please ignore the URL in the previous message which linked to an OSI list of developing and transition countries. The correct list of countries is pasted in the footnote to this message. Please refer to our web site for complete information: www.ijclp.org Sorry about that! Boris Rotenberg ----------------------------------- The International Journal of Communications Law & Policy (IJCLP) is pleased to announce a special (additional) call for papers supported through a grant from the Open Society Institute (OSI), in the framework of the Yale Information Society Project's (ISP) Access to Knowledge (A2K) Conference taking place on April 21-23, 2006 at Yale Law School. Authors from countries listed as developing and transition countries(*) are invited to submit papers related to A2K by May 1st, 2006. Any paper selected for publication will receive financial support from our OSI grant. Such support shall include a small stipend to each author in addition to free editorial processing by the Journal. Please note that authors who submit papers for this specific call are also eligible for the general call for papers and the writing competition awards announced on our web site. Submissions should be e-mailed simultaneously to the lead editors of the IJCLP, Simone Francesco Bonetti (simo.bonetti [at] tiscalinet [dot] it) and Sudhir Krishnaswamy (krishnaswamysudhir [at] gmail [dot] com). Inquiries may be addressed to any of the above. (* i.e. Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Bulgaria, Burma, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Hungary, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lesotho, Liberia, Lithuania, Laos, Macedonia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Serbia and Montenegro, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, Ukraine, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe) -------------- next part -------------- ***** NOTE: An attachment named winmail.dat was deleted from this message because it possibly contained a windows executable or other potentially dangerous file type. Contact admin at sarai.net for more information. From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Wed Jan 25 01:51:46 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 15:21:46 -0500 Subject: [Commons-Law] Internet Freedom Under Fire - Act Now Message-ID: <43D68C5A.DB58D79F@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [FORUM] Internet Freedom Under Fire - Act Now Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 14:30:59 -0500 From: Andy Valeri To: access-forum at lists.alliancecm.org After destroying TV and radio, mega-media corporations are scheming to control what content you can view and which services you can use online. Streaming video, Internet phones, podcasting and online games are the future of the Internet. But companies like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast want Congress to let them deliver only their own products at super-high speeds ... while sticking the rest of us in the slow lane. This predatory scheme would be a dead end for independent voices and Internet innovators: bloggers, producers, and any new channels and services that might compete with the conglomerates. The only way to stop them is to raise hell right now: Tell Big Media and Congress: Hands Off Our Internet. Go to http://www.freepress.net/action/neutrality From its beginnings, the Internet was built on a cooperative, democratic ideal. The infrastructure’s only job was to move data between users — regardless of where it came from or what it contained. This "network neutrality" fostered a medium that did not exclude anyone, allowed for far-reaching innovations, and created the Internet as we know it. Past experience shows that when large media companies are left to their own devices, the result is content and services that serve nothing but their bank accounts. An open and independent Internet is the antidote to these media gatekeepers. If big media companies are allowed to limit the fastest services to those who can pay their toll, upstart Web services, consumers, bloggers and new media makers alike all would be cut off from the digital revolution. Tell Big Media and Congress: Hands Off Our Internet. Go to http://www.freepress.net/action/neutrality Free Press will deliver a letter to the CEO of your broadband provider and send copies to your members of Congress, urging them to write "network neutrality" into law. Act now. We must defend our Net freedoms before we lose them altogether. Onward, Timothy Karr Campaign Director www.freepress.net P.S. Please forward this e-mail right now to everyone you know who uses the Internet. P.P.S Check out the new Free Press Web site — Dead End for the Internet? — to learn more about net neutrality and how to ensure that the Web remains an open road. Go to http://www.freepress.net/deadend/ Andy Valeri; MVCC Programming Supervisor Miami Valley Communications Council 1195 E. Alex-Bell Rd. Centerville, Ohio 45459 p 937-438-8887 f 937-438-8569 www.mvcc.net From venkyh at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 13:31:44 2006 From: venkyh at gmail.com (Venkatesh Hariharan) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 13:31:44 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Proposed amendments to copyright act Message-ID: <3f400ec0601250001y2df00b2cp7f8064e32e816524@mail.gmail.com> Has anyone seen the proposed amendments to the copyright act? A mail from the Director and Registrar of Copyrights is attached for your reference. A copy of the proposed amendments can be seen at : http://www.editthis.info/IndiaLegal/index.php/Main_Page The formatting is a bit awry because I am new to wikis. Can somebody fix this? Venky > > Dear Sir > > > > The Government of India is contemplating introducing certain > > amendments to the Copyright Act, 1957 to bring it in conformity with > > various developments that have taken place since the last amendment of > > 1999. > > > > The Software Industry is amongst other things also considered a > > Copyright Industry in view of the fact that Software is considered to be > > a literary work under the Copyright Act, 1957. This Industry is one of > > the most prominent faces of the country abroad. We would like to engage > > the industry in a discussion so that its concerns with the Copyright Act > > are taken on board while going through with the Amendments. > > > > There have been certain demands from other stakeholders as well. As a > > measure of broadbasing the consultation process with the stakeholders in > > the Act, we would like to request you to kindly use your good > > offices and arrange for a consultative meeting whereby Mr. Sudeep > > Banerjee, Secretary, Department of Secondary and Higher Education could > > interact > > with the software industry and gain an insight into its concerns > > with the Act. > > I would therefore request you to kindly arrange for a meeting after > > suitable consultations with the Industry experts to allow the Government > > to gain from their views. > > > > I attach herewith some of the amendments that have been suggested by > > various stakeholders for your ready use. > > > > Regards > > > > > > > > Madhukar Sinha > > Director and Registrar of Copyrights > > Department of Secondary and Higher Education > > Ministry of Human Resource Development > > Government of India > > Copyright Office > > B2/W3 Curzon Road Barracks > > Kasturba Gandhi Marg > > New Delhi - 110 001 > > India > > Telefax: +91(11)23386561 From prayas.abhinav at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 14:40:54 2006 From: prayas.abhinav at gmail.com (Prayas Abhinav) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:40:54 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: Variable Pricing/variable royalty Message-ID: <825bb7b00601250110y7fae58a0i6c37bb8dfbc7fa34@mail.gmail.com> Hi, www.magnasound.com - ["We're a record label. We are not evil"] has been doing for some time. Have been thinking about this here - http://peacefarm.prayas.in/?p=110. It is a post outlining a futuristic scenario where publishers will be just be service-providers for creators acting as percentage agents. In an imaginary scenario where most creators stand for open-licenses and most creative work is exchanged freely over file-sharing networks, what would happen? How would creatos still make money. Some ideas in the post. prayas From prayas.abhinav at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 14:44:03 2006 From: prayas.abhinav at gmail.com (Prayas Abhinav) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:44:03 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Creative Commons India Blog is up! Message-ID: <825bb7b00601250114o39ccc28dq6f7d3a2cf6e0c263@mail.gmail.com> Hello Everyone, The Creative Commons India blog is finally up at http://www.cc-india.org. From the introductary posting at the blog: "In which context would Creative Commons work in India? In Europe and USA the copyright laws are abused, everything is overprotected and commercialized, so CC arose as a response to that. But in India, so many creators don't even own rights to their own work, they stand mute, watching others get commercial gain out of their work. Where does CC and its allied ideas and philosophies fit in? Why CC? We are trying to frame the broader social objectives and benefits of CC, talk about how the approach of CC can help us to mobilize public opnion and action in sharing ideas and creations more freely, collaborating, learning and creating. What is the public need-base for CC in India? What is the pattern in CC adoption across the world? We are looking at producing documents, self-learning packages for different communities (film, music, academic) and involving the opinion of individuals across many professional spectrums." =========<<< >>> Would you or your collegues like to join us in finding some answers to these questions? Would you like to write at www.CC-india.org? A column, a reveiw or maybe ask some more questions? This platform for public discussion will give the eventual public launch of the licenses in India a big boost. So, in whatever way you would like to join this effort, write to me at me [at] prayas.in. ====<< Who am I? >> An artist, writer and volunteer wih the Creative Commons India effort. I am an enthusiastic user of open-licenses and open-content. More about me at www.prayas.in. ==< > Thanks! Prayas Abhinav From prabhuram at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 19:51:18 2006 From: prabhuram at gmail.com (prabhu ram) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 15:21:18 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] US demands Chinese reply over intellectual property Message-ID: <68752c9f0601250621w315bf35dy@mail.gmail.com> http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3b421120-8d33-11da-9daf-0000779e2340.html US demands Chinese reply over intellectual property By Christopher Swann and Edward Alden in Washington Published: January 24 2006 23:50 | Last updated: January 24 2006 23:50 Washington could be forced to launch a dispute­- settlement case in the World Trade Organisation if China continues to refuse to hand over information on its enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR), say US trade officials. The Chinese last month rebuffed an initial request from the office of the US trade representative and has even questioned the US right to ask for such information. Yesterday a senior US trade official said dialogue was continuing with China but suggested they were now expecting a prompt response to their demands. "We are running out of options short of litigation at the [WTO]," the official said. He indicated that impatience was mounting over piracy and counterfeiting in China. "A resort to WTO litigation remains an option," the official added. The US, along with Japan and Switzerland, had set a January 23 deadline for China to respond to a request for detailed information on how China is using its regulatory and criminal procedures to crack down on intellectual property violations. Washington is looking for tools short of a formal WTO dispute-settlement case to force China to protect US software, movies and music. It last month invoked a rarely used procedure that requires China to provided extensive data on its domestic enforcement efforts. But US officials warned at the time that Beijing's refusal to co-operate would call into doubt the ability of the two governments to resolve the issues amicably. The US is seeking a case-by-case accounting of penalties or remedies imposed for IPR infringement, the names of the authorities responsible for handling the cases and data on the types of products and operations involved. A review of China published by the USTR in April last year said that "when criminal prosecutions are pursued, a lack of transparency makes it difficult to ascertain whether they resulted in convictions and, if so, what penalties were imposed". US officials have argued that they are entitled to this information under article 63.3 of the WTO Agreement of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which allows members to request information on judicial decisions or administrative rulings on intellectual property. Frustration within the US has been mounting over widespread breaches in China of US intellectual property, one of the driving forces of US economic competitiveness. In October, when the original request for information was made, Robert Portman, the US trade representative, exp­ressed disappointment that "piracy and counterfeiting remain rampant in China despite years of engagement on this issue". "If China believes it is doing enough to protect intellectual property, then it should view this process as a chance to prove its case," he added. -- Prabhu Ram, Max-Planck-Institut for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law, MarstallPlatz 1, 80539 Munich GERMANY Tel: + 49 89 24246226 Mob: + 49 17629830521 Web: http://infoserve.blogspot.com "Press ON: Nothing in the world can take the place of Perseverance. TALENT will not; Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with Talent. GENIUS will not; Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. EDUCATION will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Only...PERSISTENCE and DETERMINATION alone are omnipotent." From tahir.amin at btopenworld.com Thu Jan 26 16:01:56 2006 From: tahir.amin at btopenworld.com (TAHIR AMIN) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 10:31:56 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Commons-Law] Microsoft to give access to code Message-ID: <20060126103157.701.qmail@web86111.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Microsoft to give access to code Microsoft has said it will give rival software companies access to parts of the source code for its Windows operating system. The concession was made in response to a 2004 European Union (EU) anti-trust ruling which ordered the company to share its code with competitors. It came three weeks ahead of the EU's compliance deadline, which threatened fines of 2m euros (£1.4m; $2.4m) a day. The code will help rivals make their software compatible with Microsoft's. "Today we are putting our most valuable intellectual property on the table so we can put technical compliance issues to rest and move forward with a serious discussion about the substance of the case," said Microsoft's legal chief, Brad Smith. Record fine The compliance deadline was set in December when the European Commission said that Microsoft's offer of 12,000 pages of documentation and 500 hours of free technical support was not adequate. The landmark 2004 ruling said the world's biggest software company was guilty of abusing its position and hit Microsoft with a record 497m euros fine, telling it to open up its operating systems. Microsoft said that the latest concession went "far beyond" the 2004 decision. It maintains that it has tried to comply with the EU's demands, but says that Brussels keeps changing it guidelines. The EU's second highest court, the European Court of First Instance, will hear Microsoft's appeal against the 2004 ruling in April. ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From hbs.law at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 22:24:42 2006 From: hbs.law at gmail.com (Hasit seth) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 22:24:42 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Goldmine - iTunes + Stanford Message-ID: <8b60429e0601260854v59b9cf81qc16b7aa86b0ab1d5@mail.gmail.com> Hi All, This is a goldmine - http://itunes.stanford.edu/ . The finest audio treasure here is Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement address. It is all in iTunes, but all free from Stanford. This has lot to do with creation, creativity, and technology. Jobs as you know is the greatest technology visionary alive today - Macintosh, NeXT, iPod, Pixar, iMac, iTunes...all have Job's fingerprints. You will need to install free iTunes to enjoy this thing. take care, Hasit From tahir.amin at btopenworld.com Fri Jan 27 10:08:12 2006 From: tahir.amin at btopenworld.com (TAHIR AMIN) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 04:38:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Commons-Law] =?iso-8859-1?q?Novartis_loses_patent_claim_on_canc?= =?iso-8859-1?q?er_drug_=97_Patents_Controller_upholds_Natco_contention?= Message-ID: <20060127043812.3716.qmail@web86103.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ALF and Lawyers Collective, on behalf of the Cancer Patients Aid Association, also filed an opposition to Glivec (as did CIPLA, Sun Pharma and Ranbaxy in their own right). We have yet to receive a decision, but it should reflect what is reported below. Tahir Novartis loses patent claim on cancer drug — Patents Controller upholds Natco contention C.R. Sukumar Hyderabad , Jan. 25 IN a major setback, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG has lost a patent claim for an anti-cancer drug — Imatinib Mesylate — before the office of the Indian Controller of Patents and Designs on Wednesday. Following serious objections raised by Natco Pharma Ltd, a Hyderabad-based pharma company, the office of the Controller of Patents & Designs at Chennai has ruled against the claim of Novartis AG. The patents office has refused to proceed further with the application for a patent filed by Novartis AG for Gleevec (Imatinib Mesylate), a life-saving drug used in the treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia, sources told Business Line. Novartis was earlier granted exclusive marketing rights (EMRs) in India for Gleevac. Natco Pharma, which launched a generic version of Gleevac under the brand `Veenat', had challenged the grant of EMRs to Novartis. This case is currently pending before the Supreme Court. Subsequently, Novartis had applied for an Indian patent and Natco had filed pre-grant opposition petition before the Controller of Patents & Designs, as provided in the amended Patents Act and Rules. According to the judgment copy available with this newspaper, the patent application was rejected after due hearings on three grounds — anticipation by prior publication, obviousness, priority and also on the ground that the product was a derivative of a known substance. Natco has submitted to the Controller that Novartis AG has filed claim for a polymorphic form of Imatinib Mesylate. As per Section 3(d) of the Patents Act, any salt, polymorph or derivative of known substance is not patentable unless such salt, polymorph or other substance shows enhanced efficacy of the substance. The Controller was informed that the specification states that wherever beta-crystals are used, the Imatinib free base or other salts can be used. Further, Natco has submitted that the technical expert has conducted studies to compare the relative bioavailability of the free base with that of beta-crystal form of Imatinib Mesylate and has said that the difference in bioavailability is only 30 per cent and also the difference in bioavailability may be due to the difference in their solubility in water. "The present patent specification (of Novartis AG) does not bring out any improvement in the efficacy of the beta-crystal form over the known substances rather it states the base can be used equally in the treatment of diseases or in the preparation of pharmacological agents wherever the beta-crystal is used. "Even the affidavit submitted on behalf of the Applicant (Novartis AG) does not prove any significant enhancement of known efficacy," Natco submitted to the Controller. Following this, the Assistant Controller of Patents & Designs, Mr V. Rengasamy, in his ruling on Wednesday said he was not convinced with the contentions of Novartis AG that the patent application claims a new substance. "It is only a new form of a known substance. It is found that this patent application claims only a new form of a known substance without having any significant improvement in efficacy." Further, stating that Novartis AG failed to prove enhanced efficacy of the beta-isomer over the known substance, the Assistant Controller has concluded that, "the subject matter of this (patent) application (filed by Novartis AG) is not patentable under Section 3(d) of the Patents Act 1970 as amended by the Patents (Amendment) Act, 2005." ___________________________________________________________ To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com From aidslaw2 at lawyerscollective.org Fri Jan 27 13:50:20 2006 From: aidslaw2 at lawyerscollective.org (aidslaw2 at lawyerscollective.org) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 13:50:20 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Access to Medicines Message-ID: <065901c6231a$847bde30$1400a8c0@LCHAUBLR.com> Affordable Medicines and Treatment Campaign (AMTC) 26 January 2006 In a stunning defeat to multinational pharmaceutical company Novartis AG today, the Patent Controller of Chennai ruled for the Cancer Patients Aid Association and drug companies in the controversial Gleevec matter. Gleevec, an anti-cancer drug also known as imatinib mesylate, caused tremendous public outcry as prices rose in India from Rs.10,000 to 1.2. lakhs per month due to exclusive rights given to Novartis by the government. The relief was visible in Mumbai today. "This is a tremendous victory for patients," stated Y.K. Sapru, Founder/Chairman of the Cancer Patients Aid Association who brought the challenge against Novartis. "We will no longer worry whether our patients will live or die. The greed of Novartis has lost to what is right and just in the world." A long battle ends today for these cancer patients. During the transition period leading up to the introduction of a product patent regime in 2005, the government granted Novartis "exclusive marketing rights"(EMRs) to Gleevec. This EMR was challenged in the Supreme Court and the case is currently pending. The battle was also fought in Madras and Bombay High Courts, with courts rendering differing decisions. The uncertainty ends today for patients suffering from chronic myeloid leukemia, who will be able to access affordable versions of the life-saving drug from now on. The decision is significant for future battles on medicines. The Patent Act does not allow patenting of new forms of known substances, strictly prohibiting patenting of derivatives, salts, polymorphs, combinations, etc. unless they differ significantly in properties with respect to efficacy. In this case, the Patent Controller ruled that Novartis had not demonstrated that there was a significant improvement in efficacy. The Controller also held that Gleevec was anticipated by prior publication and lacked an inventive step as it was a derivative of a known substance. The new battle for affordable medicines will play out in the courtroom. "We will not allow multinational drug companies to improperly extend their monopolies and price important medicines out of reach for the majority of Indians and the Global South," said Anand Grover, Project Director of Lawyers Collective who represented the Cancer Patients Aid Association in this matter. "We will continue to fight for patients, filing oppositions for life-saving drugs on behalf of patients." Patients and health groups are watching carefully to see the next steps the government is taking on access to medicines. They are awaiting the findings of the Mashelkar Committee on the issue of new chemical entities, and whether the government will allow data exclusivity provisions to be introduced to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. Both issues are expected to have critical impact on access to medicines for patients in India and the Global South. Thank you, as the press, for your continued support on this crucial issue. Affordable Medicines and Treatment Campaign (AMTC) For more information, please contact: Y.K. Sapru Priti Radhakrishnan Cancer Patients Aid Association Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit - Bangalore (022) 2492 4000/8775 (080) 5123 9130/1 +91 9821061571 +91.98454.30858 C/o Secretariat, Lawyers Collective, 4 / A, I Floor, MAH Road, Off Park Rd., Tasker Town, Shivajinagar, Bangalore-51, Email: amtc_india at yahoo.co.in -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060127/996d4004/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 94 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060127/996d4004/attachment.gif From prayas.abhinav at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 10:29:18 2006 From: prayas.abhinav at gmail.com (Prayas Abhinav) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 10:29:18 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: Variable Pricing/variable royalty (correction) Message-ID: <825bb7b00601272059p4f3d8f77j98d84d6728ac605b@mail.gmail.com> Hi, A quick note. I pasted the wrong URL in my posting on Jan 25. It was supposed to be magnatune (http://magnatune.com/) and NOT magnasound (obviously... ) My apologies, regards, Prayas From monica at sarai.net Sat Jan 28 11:09:30 2006 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 11:09:30 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] one way for the future Message-ID: Hi all Somewhat amusing in depicting how life can be fully appropriated! http://aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf best M Monica Narula Raqs Media Collective Sarai-CSDS 29 Rajpur Road Delhi 110 054 www.raqsmediacollective.net www.sarai.net From bodo at mokk.bme.hu Mon Jan 30 15:49:53 2006 From: bodo at mokk.bme.hu (Bodo Balazs) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:19:53 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] Re: Variable Pricing/variable royalty In-Reply-To: <20060128110014.F0CFF28DB8C@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <00e001c62586$b8813a40$6703a8c0@Alice> Hi, I have been following this list for the last year, and I have found many interesting topics discussed here. Thank You, or congratulations, or both for this... :)) I would like to add some thoughts to the variable pricing topic. One option for selling digital goods (music, pictures, etc) is an 'all you can eat' flat rate model: as you cannot really control the alternative (black) markets for the same goods, the producers might be interested in a tax-like solution, where the price of copyrighted materiels is included in the isp subscription fee and distributed among the producers based on the measured consumption. This of course means different amount of royalties for the authors. The other model might be finding each consumer's reservation price: the highest amount of money he or she is willing to pay for a certain good. On the net this is also possible: magnatune does this on a voluntary basis, but one can easily imagine an amazon.com like service to offer different prices to different consumers based on age (youth has less income to spend), purchase history, etc. (reverse) auctioning is also a mechanism to find customers' reservation price. This second model presumes that tha consumers do not always prefer free downloads to pay services, which in my view is a plausible assumption. This leads me to my question to this list: i am collecting data on parallel offline and online sales/downloads of cultural goods. How does a book sell in a bookstroe when it is accessible freely on the internet as well? How does online music stores' sales vary according to the price they offer? I have some very nice articles from the US market, but I am a Hungarian, and I am more interested in how these things work in small, secluded languages and cultures rather than doing just another research on english cultural markets. So if anyone here has some data on parallel sales and downloads of non-english cultural goods, please mail me! Yours, b.- --------------------------------- Balazs Bodo assistant lecturer Budapest University of Technology, Department of Sociology and Communications Center for Media Research and Education http://www.bme.hu/ http://mokk.bme.hu/ -------------- next part -------------- ***** NOTE: An attachment named Bodo Balazs .vcf was deleted from this message because it possibly contained a windows executable or other potentially dangerous file type. Contact admin at sarai.net for more information. From tahir.amin at btopenworld.com Tue Jan 31 10:37:55 2006 From: tahir.amin at btopenworld.com (TAHIR AMIN) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 05:07:55 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Commons-Law] UK court to unmask 'file-sharers' (BBC) Message-ID: <20060131050755.24587.qmail@web86101.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> UK court to unmask 'file-sharers' Ten internet service providers have been ordered to hand over the details of 150 UK customers accused of illegally sharing software. The High Court order follows a 12-month covert investigation by the Federation Against Software Theft (Fast). Among the internet providers are BT, NTL, Telewest and Tiscali. Over the next two weeks, they are expected to provide the names, addresses and other personal details of the alleged file-sharers. 'First wave' An undercover investigator working for Fast in a project codenamed Operation Tracker identified 150 people suspected of illegally sharing software. Most file-sharers use false names and e-mail addresses. So the software anti-piracy group went to the High Court to force the internet providers to hand over customer details. We expect to be bringing these actions anytime and anywhere we see software being misused Julian Heathcote Hobbins, Fast legal counsel The federation said it would approach the police and Crown Prosecution Service once it has the personal information. "We can easily take down links, but this does not tackle the root causes of software piracy, because the links will reappear elsewhere in a matter of hours," said John Lovelock, director general at Fast. "Instead, we plan to take action a lot further, making an example of the perpetrators to stop them from stealing and passing on the intellectual property of our members for good." The federation accuses the 150 individuals of breaking copyright law by uploading software and sharing it online. Penalties for the illegal communication to the public of copyrighted works, including software, can attract a maximum punishment of up to two years imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine. Julian Heathcote Hobbins, Fast's senior legal counsel, said the court action was "only the first wave of an ongoing strategy". "We expect to be bringing these actions anytime and anywhere we see software being misused," he said. According to the anti-piracy trade group, the Business Software Alliance, about a quarter of software used in the UK is an unlicensed, counterfeit or pirated copy. ___________________________________________________________ To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com