Hari Puttar vs. Harry Potter

from the in-the-wizard-of-IP-law-suits dept

J.K. Rowling has been an aggressive user of intellectual property laws against anyone who she feels has done her wrong, and Warner Bros. studio, which owns the rights to the movies has been equally aggressive at times. The latest target, as sent in by a bunch of readers, is an Indian film by the name of Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors, about a young Indian boy who gets left home alone. If anything, you almost have to wonder if the makers of the film purposely picked a bunch of recognizable themes. There is the name, which potentially plays on both Harry Potter and Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors (which, of course, is public domain). Then there's the story line, which seems similar to the Home Alone movies. So this film isn't copying Rowling's work, but the name certainly sounds like it could be.

The movie makers insist their Hari Puttar has nothing to do with Harry Potter. The storylines are entirely different. Hari is a popular Indian name and Puttar means "son" in Punjabi. Plus, when pronounced correctly, it doesn't even sound like Harry Potter. That doesn't mean that it wasn't done on purpose, of course. So, yes, I can understand where Warner is coming from, but that still doesn't necessarily make this a smart move. Leaving the movie as is doesn't take any money away from Rowling or Warner. If anything, all this effort is doing is providing a lot more free publicity for the Hari Puttar movie -- which may be exactly what the movie makers wanted.

Filed Under: hari puttar, harry potter, india, trademark

Indian Court Demands Google Hand Over Anonymous Blogger's Identity

from the anonymity-not-allowed dept

It would appear that Google is discovering some of the differences in the legal system in India as compared to the US. Just after we wrote about how Google (along with Microsoft and Yahoo) were sued over ads, there are some stories coming out about how an Indian court has ordered Google to hand over the identity of an anonymous blogger who was criticizing an Indian company, Gremach Infrastructure Equipments & Projects Ltd. While anonymous speech is somewhat protected (within certain limits) in the US, that's not the case in many other countries. As the link above notes, this may force Google to change the way it does business in India.

In some ways, this is just another example of a problem that many folks have been asking about for years. On a borderless web, how do you know whose jurisdiction covers what? If the blogging all occurred on US servers hosted by a US company, should they be covered by US laws... or Indian laws? Or, even, some other country entirely? If you agree that once it's on the internet, it can be covered by laws in other countries, you end up with a bad result: the worst, strictest laws suddenly become the laws everywhere. That's a ridiculous outcome, but it's exactly where things go when you start suing an American company concerning content hosted in America under laws from another country.

Filed Under: anonymity, bloggers, defamation, india, jurisdiction
Companies: google, gremach

Google, Microsoft And Yahoo Sued In India For Not Preventing Sex Selection Ads

from the misunderstanding-liability dept

India unfortunately doesn't have the equivalent of section 230 of the CDA, which prevents service providers from being sued for the actions of their users. That's why Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are all facing a lawsuit over certain types of ads in India. Apparently it's illegal in India to advertise any technique or product designed to influence the sex of a child. However, such ads have been appearing on all three sites. The problem, though, is that the liability should be on those who are actually buying the advertising. They're the parties who are really breaking the law. Yet, because Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are easier targets (and have a lot more money), that's who gets targeted.

Filed Under: advertisements, india, liability
Companies: google, microsoft, yahoo

Forget The $100 PC; India Now Working On A $10 PC... Or Not

from the take-that-negroponte dept

Over the years, we've pointed out some of the more ridiculous aspects of the One Laptop Per Child program (originally known as the $100 PC). While the cause is quite admirable, the project's founder, Nicholas Negroponte has taken a rather strange way to get there. Rather than letting the competitive free market get us to a point where a $100 laptop is feasible, he would attack anyone who dared to try to create a competing product. Also, much of the OLPC was developed very much as a top down project -- rather than opening it up to various participants to look at different options for making things even better or cheaper.

In fact, when the initial designs came down, the countries that were supposed to be all excited about the OLPC, such as India, weren't particularly excited -- turning down a chance to participate in the OLPC program (though, it has run some small scale tests). Now, however, India claims that it's working on its own cheap laptop: and it'll be a $10 PC instead of $100 (and, really, the OLPC is more like $200 anyway). It's not clear how India plans to create such a cheap PC, and the article notes there's a decent chance it won't really be $10 -- but a subsidized $10. Still, one doubts that Negroponte will be very happy about this, despite the fact that it advances his vision, if not his implementation. Update: Well, well, well. Now Indian officials are claiming they misspoke, and the $10 laptop will actually be a $100 laptop. If they can actually get there, more power to them -- because, as we noted, OLPC's $100 laptop is actually $200.

Filed Under: $10 pc, $100 pc, india, nicholas negroponte

Indian Music Firm Sues Yahoo Over Music Streaming

from the and-this-again dept

There is no DMCA-equivalent in India, apparently, meaning that there are no similar "safe harbors" that protect a service provider from the actions of their users. However, that still doesn't mean one should automatically blame the service provider for a users' actions -- but that's exactly what an Indian court has done. An Indian music company has sued Yahoo and won an injunction barring Yahoo from streaming any of the company's music. While the company had sent complaint letters to Yahoo, Yahoo (reasonably) had asked it to follow the basic takedown procedure, which requires proving that the company properly owns the copyright on the song and then requesting it be taken down.

However, the company says: "it is not possible for the company to spend time and resources to monitor copyright infringements on sharing sites." What they don't explain is why, if the copyright owners themselves can't do it, why they think sites like Yahoo and Google should be able to do it. In fact, it's even more ridiculous when you realize that many musicians want their music on these sites, and Yahoo, Google and others have no way of knowing whether or not a song on their sites has been put their legitimately or not. To have a court demand that Yahoo somehow "figure it out" simply isn't possible, unless it bars all use of music, which hardly seems like a reasonable request.

Filed Under: copyright, india, liability, music, safe harbors
Companies: super cassettes industries, yahoo

RIM Tells India That It Simply Cannot Snoop On Blackberry Email

from the so-sorry dept

A few months back, we noted that the Indian government was demanding that RIM let government officials snoop on emails sent via Blackberry devices, or they would be banned in India. I'm not sure why it took so long for RIM to point this out, but it finally has explained to the government the nature of its encryption scheme which means that RIM itself cannot decrypt messages sent via the network, since they're based on an encryption key set up by the end user. It's not clear how India is going to respond, though the article notes the two sides are "talking."

Filed Under: blackberry, email, encryption, india, snooping
Companies: rim

Why Do Doctors Still Write Prescriptions (Illegibly) When They Can Type Them?

from the seems-simple-enough dept

Reuters is running an article talking about how folks in India are urging doctors to stop writing prescriptions so illegibly, as it all too often leads to filling the wrong prescription (even to the point of putting someone's life at risk). However, this is hardly just an Indian issue, as the same thing happens in the US as well. In an age where more and more doctors' offices are computerized, it simply doesn't make any sense not to offer computerized prescriptions that accurately display the drug in question (including, perhaps, questions or warnings about possible conflicts or side effects). The fact that it may save a few seconds for a doctor to scribble hardly seems like a reasonable excuse when people's lives are on the line and it's part of the doctor's job to do whatever possible to keep them healthy.

Filed Under: doctors, handwriting, india, prescriptions

Press Boycotts Indian Cricket Matches Over Restrictions On Digital Media

from the good-for-them dept

Last week, we wrote about how disappointing it was that American newspapers agreed to restrictions placed on them by Major League Baseball concerning how those newspapers could report on games online. You would think that newspapers reared on the idea of freedom of the press and editorial independence would not allow an organization they were covering to dictate the terms of coverage -- but they did. Luckily, it looks like reporters down in India are more willing to stand up for what they feel is right. Reader Bipin writes in to let us know of a very similar situation, where the Indian Premiere League put a number of restrictions on how the press could report online on its cricket competitions in India. Rather than agree to the restrictions, the press threatened to boycott IPL events entirely. Apparently the boycott threat has worked to get the league to back down a bit, though it may still end up with some restrictions. That still seems ridiculous, and hopefully the press will again point out that it needs to remain independent and cannot abide by any restrictions placed on it by the very organization it's covering.

Filed Under: bans, cricket, india, journalism, media restrictions, reporters

India Demanding That RIM Let It Snoop On Encrypted Email Messages

from the let-us-eavesdrop-or-no-more-crackberry dept

It's certainly no secret that governments like to snoop on various forms of communication whenever possible, but they're usually not quite so blatant about the specifics. Endgadget points us to the news that Indian security officials have demanded that RIM open up a backdoor to unencrypt all messages sent via the Blackberry network or face being shutdown in India. With approximately 400,000 Crackberry users in India, that's likely to upset quite a few people. At this point, though, do people doing things likely to attract the attention of the feds not know to seek out more secure means of communication?

Filed Under: encryption, india, rim, wiretapping

Is The IndiaTimes Website Bombarding Visitors With Malware?

from the can't-be-good-for-repeat-business dept

While it's well known that less well known sites may have been set up to maliciously install malware on your computer, most people assume (reasonably so) that larger, more well known sites are most likely safe to visit. However, one security firm is out raising the alarm that the English-language website of the India Times, a popular newspaper in India (which we've linked to multiple times in the past), is apparently chock full of risky pages that exploit various security vulnerabilities to try to download hundreds of malware apps to your computer. The security firm apparently first noticed this a few weeks ago, but didn't realize the severity until now. What's unclear from the description is how this is actually happening. We've heard stories in the past of scammers hacking into ad servers and serving malicious code that way, but there's no real indication that that's what's happening in this case.

Filed Under: india, malware
Companies: india times