India The Latest To Think About Kicking People Off The Internet Based On Accusations Of File Sharing

from the guilty-until-proven-innocent dept

A few months back, we pointed to a discussion looking at how three countries with some of the biggest movie industries outside of the US -- Nigeria, China and India -- all were thriving, despite massive "piracy." As you looked at the details of each, it showed how each industry had been adapting to a marketplace in which some of the content was widely available, but were still figuring out ways to make money (i.e., you can compete with free). However, because competing with free actually involves work, it should come as no surprise that some are seeking to implement government protectionist policies.

Gautam John points us to the news that a "High Level Committee on Piracy" in India, put together by the Indian government has come back with a variety of suggestions including a "three strikes" plan that would kick users off the internet based on accusations (not convictions) for unauthorized file sharing. There's also a suggestion that would appear to make theater owners somewhat liable for customers camcording movies. They also support preventative detention of potential pirates -- a ridiculous idea that has been put in practice in some areas of India already -- and which the US entertainment industry has encouraged. Yes, this is detaining people who might make an unauthorized copy. Welcome to pre-crime, India-style. About the only suggestion that isn't massively damaging to individuals' rights is the idea that filmmakers "make piracy unviable" by offering their movies at more reasonable prices and in more ways, so that people are more willing to go with legitimate options. They probably should have just stuck with that suggestion and left the rest alone.

Filed Under: copyright, india, three strikes

Colgate Patents Traditional Indian Tooth-cleaning Powder Despite It Being Used For Thousands Of Years

from the locking-up-knowledge dept

Over the years, we've seen a number of stories of big companies going into various countries, finding "traditional" and "herbal" remedies, and then figuring out ways to patent them. The latest such example, sent in by sinsi, involves Colgate "patenting" (in the US) a tooth-cleaning powder based on a recipe that has been used in India for "thousands" of years according to officials there. The patent itself (7,736,629) is for a "red herbal dentrifice" and, if you read the claims, it seems clear that they're just patenting a "recipe" of sorts, which alone seems ridiculous enough. But when you add in the fact that it's been used so widely in traditional Indian society, it gets even sillier. The whole thing appears to be yet another example of companies trying to use patent laws to lock up widely known knowledge... with the Patent Office assisting.

Filed Under: india, patents, toothpaste, traditional remedies
Companies: colgate

India Concerned How ACTA Changes Previous Trade Agreements

from the protests-getting-heard dept

We've pointed out in the past, that one of the reasons why ACTA was done outside of the existing infrastructure for such agreements set up under WIPO and the WTO was to craft an agreement without involving the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). The negotiators knew, quite well, that the BRIC countries would fight back strongly, as all four have used the ability to copy to create economic growth, and have recently been much more vocal in pushing back about some of the more annoying parts of earlier agreements on intellectual property. Now, the ACTA negotiators keep talking about how they'd like the BRIC countries to join "someday," but by creating ACTA outside of the WTO, they've been able to leave those four powerhouses totally out of the negotiations, so that if they ever join, it'll be a total "take it or leave it" situation.

Thankfully, those countries are expressing their concerns about the whole thing. Earlier, we noted that Brazil had come out and declared ACTA "illegitimate." Now it's India's turn. At a recent WTO meeting, India (rather politely) appears to have expressed its serious concerns about the "far reaching implication" for those who are not part of ACTA. The link above lists out many of those concerns, but one key one is how ACTA appears to have redefined "commercial scale," contrary to what the WTO has said constitutes "commercial scale."

We call attention to the fact that ACTA negotiators have decided among themselves to overturn the decision of the WTO dispute settlement panel in the recent China-Enforcement case by reinterpreting the phrase "commercial scale" with respect to willful trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy so as to refer to any activity carried out for a direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage. This is startling in light of the WTO panel's contrary decision that the term "scale" refers to a level of activity, and it highlights the risk to WTO law posed by turning enforcement matters over to small groups of plurilateral negotiators operating outside the WTO legal framework.

India is also pointing out that the negotiators involved in ACTA appear to have exaggerated the "threats" involved (something we've pointed out for years, but it's nice to see it called out in an international forum):

To find an effective and enduring solution to the problem, we need to step back from a purely mercantilist approach. We also need to avoid exaggerating the issue of counterfeiting and piracy since there is lack of empirical data. Even the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recently raised serious questions concerning the data that has been relied on by proponents of the ACTA to support the effort.

This is also the first time I've seen anyone else actually point out that ACTA is, very much, a mercantilist (protectionism) approach.

Filed Under: acta, india, trade agreements

Man Arrested In India For Photographing Woman In A Public Place & 'Insulting Her Modesty'

from the privacy? dept

Michael Scott points us to the news of a guy arrested in India for using his cameraphone to take a photo of a woman at a train station. He's accused of "insulting the modesty of a woman, by word, gesture or act" as well as "intruding upon the privacy" of the woman. To be fair, the article makes it clear that the woman and the police felt this guy was a "stalker" who had followed the woman on the train for months. However, it also said the woman didn't mind until he took that extra step of taking her photograph, which is apparently considered a privacy violation:

According to the police, the act of taking a photograph of a woman without her consent amounts to "intruding upon her privacy". An officer said: "The woman concerned has mentioned in her complaint that she had objections to (the person) taking her photograph. So we arrested him," an officer said.

The article quotes a lawyer who suggests this case is a slam dunk... as well as another who said there's no way the case gets anywhere, as there's nothing wrong with taking a photo of someone in a public place.

Filed Under: india, photographs, privacy

Record Labels Flip Out After Indian Copyright Board Massively Lowers Radio Royalties

from the get-ready-for-the-anti-India-spin dept

Get ready to hear all sorts of stories from record labels about how India is "anti-music" and a problem. That's because the Copyright Board in India just drastically changed the royalty structure for playing music on FM radios. Rather than a set hourly rate of approximately $25.60 - $35.50/hour (1200 to 1600 rupees), it's now saying that stations should just pay 2% of their net advertising. That turns out to be a massive change -- perhaps a drop of about 90% to the record labels, since the current hourly rates represent about 18% of net advertising revenue. Of course, as the article points out, the 18% rate was much higher than most of the rest of the world and crippling to radio stations. But, in the world we live in, the record labels will never accept the idea that they don't always deserve greater and greater rights to money.

Filed Under: copyright, india, royalties

Police Arrest Researcher Who Showed E-Voting Machines Are Not Secure

from the this-is-concerning dept

A few months back, a research report came out noting that e-voting machines in India were not secure. I had seen it at the time, but considering how many stories we've seen of e-voting machines with security problems, I let it pass and didn't write it up. However, the story has just taken a distressing turn. One of the researchers, Hari Prasad, who had obtained the e-voting machine from an anonymous source in the first place, has been arrested and taken into custody because he will not reveal who gave him the machine:

The police did not state a specific charge at the time of the arrest, but it appears to be a politically motivated attempt to uncover our anonymous source. The arresting officers told Hari that they were under "pressure [from] the top," and that he would be left alone if he would reveal the source's identity.

Prasad was taken from his home and driven to Mumbai, a 14-hour journey, where he is to be interrogated. Alex Halderman, who has done lots of research on e-voting machines over the years, and worked with Prasad on the research on the Indian e-voting machine was able to speak to him while he was being driven to Mumbai. Prasad worries that his arrest will create serious chilling effects on other security researchers, and plans to stand up to authorities to hopefully prevent such chilling effects from occurring. You can listen to excerpts from the call in the following YouTube video: The initial post, written by Halderman, also gives plenty of background on the machines. The Indian government has refused to let researcher review the machine, and insists that it's tamper-proof. Even after the initial report came out proving this not to be the case, the government has continued to insist the machines are fine and have no problems. Here in the US, it's quite troubling how much the government has relied on e-voting machines without allowing security researchers to really test them, but at least they don't arrest those who have been able to access and test the machines. This is a hugely troubling move by the Indian government, and hopefully getting more attention on such a questionable arrest will make the Indian government regret this decision -- and open up the machines for real security testing.

Filed Under: alex halderman, e-voting, hari prasad, india, security

Indian Government Demands Right To Spy On Skype, Gmail, Blackberry Messages

from the spying-more-important-than-productivity dept

Last year we noted that Indian intelligence officials were quite concerned about Skype, and the fact that they couldn't easily tap into communications on Skype. Two years ago, we noted a similar story concerning RIM Blackberry emails. Now Slashdot points us to the news that India's government is once again demanding that Skype and RIM make sure their services are in formats that can be read by law enforcement. A separate article says similar demands are being made on Google with respect to Gmail.

Of course, last time this happened (with RIM, at least), RIM pointed out that there's simply no way for it to decrypt email sent by users, since it's based on an encryption key set up by the end user. In response, the Indian government claimed that it had cracked the encryption used by Blackberries and was able to monitor messages sent via those devices. Of course, the fact that it's now pressuring RIM to format messages in easily spied-upon ways, certainly suggests the news of the cracking of Blackberry's encryption was somewhat exaggerated.

Filed Under: blackberry, encrypted, gmail, india, messages, skype, spying
Companies: google, rim, skype

Indian Politicians Caught Watching Unauthorized Copy Of Film About Politics

from the obscurity-or-piracy? dept

Apparently there's a popular political thriller movie that recently was released in India, called Politics (or Raajneeti). It's doing quite well, but apparently a group of actual politicians from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wanted to watch the movie and didn't want to go to a theater to do so. So they had a recent screening for dozens of elected officials from the party at a hotel. Of course, since the movie wasn't available on DVD or elsewhere besides movie theaters, apparently they found an unauthorized copy elsewhere. The only reason this got out was due to news reports on the screening, and the director of the movie is upset, though he admits that if they had just asked him for a copy of the movie he would have given it to them for free.

This raises two points. First, it's always amusing to me to see politicians, who often are among the most sanctimonious when it comes to the supposed importance of copyright law, quite frequently feel no need to obey copyright law themselves. Second, it seems like the director of the movie is overreacting -- perhaps in an attempt to get more publicity for the movie. If he admits that he would have handed over a free copy anyway, what is he complaining about? He didn't "lose" anything. In fact, he saved time and effort by not having to approve this and not having to send out a copy of the movie. This way, it was actually a lot more efficient.

Filed Under: copyright, india, politics

India And China Claim That ACTA Violates Earlier IP Agreements

from the at-least-someone's-fighting... dept

Recently, we noted that India and some other countries were gearing up to oppose ACTA, as it presents a huge problem for a variety of developing countries. India should know. It's still getting over the troubles created by TRIPS, which forced it to make some massive changes to its IP laws, which multiple studies have shown to have caused trouble for India. So it doesn't seem to keen to sign up for yet another, even more draconian, set of IP rules. Michael Geist points us to some notes from the recent WTO meeting where India (along with China, and some other developing nations) expressed their serious concerns with ACTA, including that it appears to violate the TRIPS agreement that they've already signed onto:

Briefly, China's and India's lengthy statements argued that ACTA and other agreements could:

• Conflict with TRIPS Agreement (a reference to TRIPS Art.1.1) and other WTO agreements, and cause legal uncertainty
• Undermine the balance of rights, obligations and flexibilities that were carefully negotiated in the various WTO agreements
• Distort trade or create trade barriers, and disrupt goods in transit or transhipment
• Undermine flexibilities built into TRIPS (such as for public health, and trade in generic medicines)
• Undermine governments' freedom to allocate resources on intellectual property by forcing them to focus on enforcement
• Set a precedent that would require regional and other agreements to follow suit. (One example cited was negotiations involving CARIFORUM, the group of Caribbean states. However, a delegation representing CARIFORUM said it understood the concerns but denied that CARIFORUM would have to apply ACTA's provisions.)

They also argued that the focus on enforcement did not take into account a country's level of development.

A number of developing countries broadly supported the concern.

Not too surprisingly, ACTA supporters hit back, but note how they avoid some of the bigger issues here:

ACTA participants voiced their concerns about what they saw as a steadily increasing level of counterfeiting and piracy. They countered that the draft ACTA agreement will not conflict with TRIPS and other WTO provisions. They denied it would upset the negotiated balance, distort legitimate trade or undermine TRIPS flexibilities. One said generic medicines would not be affected since ACTA does not deal with patents.

They said that ACTA was necessary because counterfeiting is no longer a question of products such as fake luxury watches, but involves commercial scale production of fake medicines, car and aircraft parts and other products, which are dangerous to health and safety, and that developing countries are particularly vulnerable.

Some of them also said they had to get together outside the WTO because countries had opposed discussing enforcement substantively in the TRIPS Council.

That claim about ACTA not dealing with patents is news to us. Both the leaked and the released draft still had language suggesting that at least some negotiators used language such that ACTA applied broadly to all intellectual property. If they're really dropping patents from ACTA, that would certainly be news. Jamie Love noted at a recent meeting that Steve Metalitz, who is a lawyer representing the entertainment industry, has said that patents are being dropped from ACTA. Hopefully it's true, but until we actually see that, who knows whether it's really happening.

As for the claims that ACTA is "necessary," that's clearly bogus. Also, it's amusing to note that the "necessary" part focuses on the typical fear mongering points of fake medicines. If they want to stop fake medicines and fake aircraft parts, fine. Then create a document that does that. The problem is that ACTA supporters hide under those claims to lump in a ton of unrelated stuff, which is where many of the concerns come from.

Separately, Love also notes that Metalitz claims that it's "not appropriate" for trading partners to discuss fair use in ACTA. Huh? This is an argument we've seen before, and it makes absolutely no sense. ACTA's copyright provisions include all sorts of aggressive enforcement requirements, and without clear fair use exceptions, those enforcement rules strip copyright of most of its key balancing points. The whole ACTA process continues to be a sham.

Filed Under: acta, china, copyright, enforcement, india, intellectual property, patents, trips