INDIA: Publishers vs. Delhi University students... and David wins!
Good news! This case pertains to some ludicrous copyright violation allegations made by major publishers, involving Indian university students (and cheap photocopying outlets) reproducing their work for educational purposes. See the comments on the judgement below. I believe the role of publishers is to spread knowledge, not to block it. Also, as a class we publishers should not be so stingy just to maintain desired or dreamt-of standards of affluence. Fair use and readers' rights should also be kept in mind and enforced. FN http://spicyip.com/2016/09/breaking-news-major-victory-for-students-and-educational-access-in-du-photocopy-case.html COPYRIGHT Breaking News: Major Victory for Students and Educational Access in DU Photocopy Case! by Shamnad Basheer September 16, 2016 As many of you may have heard, the Delhi High Court just handed down a major IP verdict in the DU photocopy case. In a 94 page decision, the court (Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw) dismissed the suit of the plaintiffs (CUP, OUP and other leading academic publishers) and held that the educational exception under section 52(1)(i) of the copyright act is broad enough to cover the acts of photocopying and the creation of course packs by Delhi University (DU) for their students. For background to this case, see our posts here and here. Other posts with the tag DU can be found here. As some of you know, a group of us academics (drawn from the law and social sciences) intervened in this DU copyright matter and presented arguments to the court. We formed an association called SPEAK (Society for the Promotion of Educational Access and Knowledge) for this purpose. Our counsel was Swathi Sukumar, a terrific lawyer at the Delhi high court, who was led by the wonderful Neeraj Kishen Kaul, a leading senior counsel. Similarly a number of students had formed an association called ASEAK and their counsel was Jawahar Raja, an exceptional lawyer (I had the great privilege of going to law school with him). DU�s counsel was the truly gifted Gopal Subramanium (one of India�s leading senior counsels or silks) who ran a rather maverick argument stating that the earlier framework where one qualified an act as an infringement and only then went into the �defences� was wrong and in cases such as this, there is no infringement at all in the first place. From my limited understanding of the order at this point, I believe the judge did incorporate this insight into his decision. On a broader note, it seems like the court was pleased to accept many of the arguments that we had advanced. Here are the key highlights based on a quick understanding of the order (this is my version and only I am to be held responsible if there are any errors). 1. The judge (Justice Endlaw: god bless his soul!) dismissed the publishers� law suit as a whole. Noting that there was no cause of action at all. Since there was no actionable infringement in this case. All the alleged copying is covered under the broad educational exception under section 52(1)(i) of the copyright act. In short, the judge noted that there was no need for trial at all in this matter, since there was no actionable infringement. 2. The decision stands at a whooping 94 pages! 3. The judge explicitly stated that the educational exception under section 52(1) (i) should be construed widely and clearly covers the present set of acts engaged in by DU (photocopying excerpts of books etc and creating course packs). Plaintiffs� argument that it should cover only photocopying in the classroom is incorrect. The exception should cover all kinds of educational copying including copying for the purpose of preparatory work towards a class etc. 3. Copyright is not a �divine� right! The judge actually said this! I repeat: God bless his soul! 4. IRRO doesn�t even come into play since educational exception covers the alleged acts. And no need to pay IRRO. So out goes the IRRO business model strategy, which I believe is why this suit was brought in the first place at all. 5. If DU can photocopy, so can its agents (Rameshwari photocopiers) or any photocopier for that matter, whether inside or outside the University. This decision will prove one of the biggest landmarks in IP jurisprudence the world over. And clearly spells out that private rights will have to yield to larger social goals which have to be interpreted widely. Much like the Supreme Court decision in the Novartis case, this decision too makes it amply clear that while India will be guided by foreign precedent, it will carve out its own IP jurisprudence and interpret the law in a way that suits its own societal requirements. On a related note, I�m really happy to se
INDIA: Adhar... India's much-debated biometric and demographic data
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is a central government agency of India.^ Its objective is to collect the biometric and demographic data of residents, store them in a centralised database, and issue a 12-digit unique identity number called Aadhaar to each resident.^^ It is considered the world's largest national identification number project.^^ As of March 2016, the original legislation to back UIDAI is still pending in the Parliament of India.^ However, on 3 March 2016, a new money bill was introduced in the Parliament for the purpose.^ On 11 March 2016, the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, benefits and services) Act, 2016, was passed in the Lok Sabha.^ On 26 March, 2016, The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of financial & Other Subsidies, Benefits & Services) Act, 2016 was notified in the Gazette of India.^ Some civil liberty groups, like Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties and Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), have opposed the project on privacy concerns. On 23 September 2013, the Supreme Court of India issued an interim order saying that "no person should suffer for not getting Aadhaar" as the government cannot deny a service to a resident if s/he does not possess Aadhaar, as it is voluntary and not mandatory.^ In another interim order on 11 August 2015, the Supreme Court of India ruled that "UIDAI/Aadhaar will not be used for any other purposes except PDS, kerosene and LPG distribution system" and made it clear that even for availing these facilities Aadhaar card will not be mandatory.^^^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aadhaar * * * http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/aadhaar-authentication-on-phones-is-for-manufacturers-to-decide-ajay-bhushan-pandey-116091501174_1.html Aadhaar authentication on phones is for manufacturers to decide: Ajay Bhushan Pandey Interview with Chief executive officer, Unique Identification Authority of India Nitin Sethi | New Delhi September 16, 2016 Last Updated at 00:25 IST Ajay Bhushan Pandey Govt pushes for mobile phones with vernacular language access Aadhaar law has good data protection & privacy provisions: A B P Pandey I have long said we need a privacy law but Aadhaar has safeguards: Nandan Nilekani India's Aadhaar mandate for smartphone makers may rile global firms Why is the UIDAI cracking down on individuals that hoard Aadhaar data? Ajay Bhushan Pandey, CEO of UIDAI speaks to Nitin Sethi on the way forward for Aadhaar now that allregulations are in place and addresses some controversies that are dogging theplatform. You have the regulations in place now to operationlise the entire Aadhaar law? Yes, when Aadhaar Act says certain actions such as enrolment, authentication, privacy, will happen as per regulations. To operationalise the act, the regulations had to be put in place. This week we have done so to make all provisions of the act operational. There are still no regulations in some areas, such as a grievance redress mechanism? What other such things are left to detail out? In case of regulations in several places we have said that something or the other will be done as per process approved by the UIDAI or specifications approved by UIDAI. Already there are specifications and processes in place. Now these regulations will have to be read along with those process or mechanism document. Today we already have those documents in place. The regulations say that all processes that were being followed so far and are not inconsistent with the act and the regulations will continue to have legal bearing. For example if you are using the enrolment software or hardware, what should be the specifications? All these cannot as such become part of the regulations. So in regulations we have said these specifications will be laid down by the authority and we had already laid them down earlier. So when will the grievance redress system become functional? Actually if you see, we already have a grievance redressal system within the UIDAI. We have a call centre. Any resident can call 1947 and can register their grievance. Today every day we get 1.5 lakh calls every day. Of these 50% are addressed through the automated system and the rest need handling by operators. We monitor every week the nature of the difficulty people are facing? What is the predominant complaint at the moment? That changes from time to time. Currently people are concerned where they can get Aadhaar or that they have enrolled but not received it. We devise our media strategy accordingly to educate people and if some corrections have to be made within our system we try to address that as a systematic issue besides attending to the individual problem. Another a
Stiegler: Accelerating innovation bypasses all that contributes, to
[I came across this article by Bernhard Stiegler, which peaked my interest in the context of the discussion of accelerationism. But as I was reading along, what struck me even more is how good the standard automatic translation has become Felix] Bernard Stiegler: "Accelerating innovation bypasses all that contributes to the development of civilization" http://www.liberation.fr/debats/2016/07/01/bernard-stiegler-l-acceleration-de-l-innovation-court-circuite-tout-ce-qui-contribue-a-l-elaboration_1463430 Disruptive". The term, says the dictionary of the French Academy, derives from the Latin disrumpere, "break into pieces to burst." In the language of digital companies, "disruptive innovation" is the breakthrough innovation, one that challenges the established positions, bypassing the rules, requires a paradigm shift. Google to Uber, the "disruption" upsets our connected lives. But at what price? Director of the Institute of Research and Innovation Centre Pompidou, founder of the association Ars Industrialis, the philosopher Bernard Stiegler dedicates his work to the effects of technological changes. In his latest book, in the disruption, how not to go crazy? (Links editions that release), he analyzes this phenomenon which "overtakes the social organizations' risk of disintegration and collective melancholy. And calls for a "bifurcation" that makes us into a "new era." __You describe the disruption, the acceleration of innovation, as a "new form of barbarism." Why? In that it is opposed to civilization. The disruption began in 1993 with the cross-linking - the network structure - digital and widespread connection. This comes at no dove, and rather as something enchanting, with its promise of changing the world - a change which I still believe. With the crosslinking by the algorithms, we are witnessing an unprecedented acceleration of innovation, which had already risen sharply after World War II. But now the reticular bypassing technical systematically everything that contributes to the development of civilization. What happens to us in Silicon Valley just liquidate the rule of law as a state based on thoughtful deliberative legitimacy. In France, the "startup accelerator" thefamily, which is based in Silicon Valley, is in this formula ". The barbarians are attacking" It would be for these néobarbares to sow chaos in all sectors - social housing, transport, education, real estate, environment ... During the terrible year 2015, we met the barbarity of Daech . [Arabic acronym for EI, note] alongside this horrific barbarism, there is another form of barbarism more "soft", a technological barbarism that feeds the terrorist barbarity. __How we live is different from previous major technological breakthroughs? Destabilization became permanent. The problem is not the technology shock: the increase of knowledge in all its forms, is always the aftermath of such a shock, near or far. A great moment of breakthrough technology produces what philosophers call a épokhè : interruption, suspension of everything that seemed "to flow naturally." Technological épokhè always generates a second épokhè affecting it, the life of the mind - art, science, philosophy, politics, law ... And it produced a new era in the strong sense. But technological breakthroughs occur at intervals more frequent. And for a short time, with digital cross-linking, we are in a device that makes everything moves constantly, that nothing is stable. And that society can no longer be nourished: it finds the contrary disintegrated. __There is no "new thinking" that is emerging but, you write, a lack of thought ... We can no longer develop knowledge. A technology is a pharmakon : This Greek word refers to what is both poison and cure. Pharmakon technology holds promise, but it always starts with thousand cause problems, because it starts with destroying composed frames. After this phase of destruction appears that Rimbaud called "the new" which makes pharmakon remediation: a different lifestyle, a different time. This is what happens over us: the disruptive process systematically cultivated by the knights of industry overtakes any socialization. But this is not sustainable. This forward flight produces a colossal acceleration of the Anthropocene, an era in which the human has become a major geological factor, resulting collective melancholy and various forms of despair. __What we disruption "fact", individually and collectively? It makes us mad. This collective of madness surprisingly similar to what Foucault described in his Madness and Civilization : the late Middle Ages is a time of very great changes, which produced countless speeches on the register where 'the world went crazy "," everything goes wrong "... in the 60s, we still felt at a time. From 70-80 years, it weakens. After 1993, it collapses. What characterizes our time, that is what the philosopher Maurice Blanchot saw coming as the lack of time. And what sets this fact is the lack
The Great Acceleration Event (GAE)
It's depressing to hear, over and over again, "we need to" calls, as if the key is in some magical proposition, a thought, a formula, a method, which is just around the corner, just another conference or another book away. For a hammer everything is a nail, and for a tenured thinker everything is an idea. But things will take care of themselves. Some 2.3 billion years ago, several cyanobacteria, working in a garage, figured out how to produce oxygen from sunlight and CO2. What followed is the Great Oxygenation Event. Anaerobic life protested, held many conferences, called for de-oxygenation, and eventually died out (except few hardcore species that dug themselves into the ground.) The rest is history. Some *will* survive the GAE and thrive. On 9/16/16, 5:37, Felix Stalder wrote: limit. We need to find a new economic rationality. And if it is possible, contrary to what skeptics think all this is because we can not do otherwise. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
