Seminar on Rethinking Copyright and Licensing for Digital Publishing Today (Delhi, January 23)

Poster: Download (PNG)

The two speakers at the seminar will be Dr. Philipp Theisohn, Professor of Modern German Literary Studies, Zurich University, and Ms. Kerstin Schuster, Droemer Knaur publishing group. The session will be chaired by Mr. Zakir Thomas, Additional Director General (Risk Assessment), Directorate of Income Tax, Government of India.

Dr. Theisohn will address the question of whether the digital age requires a new approach to copyright thinking, and Ms. Schuster will discuss the dynamics of the international market for licenses in the contemporary publishing world.

Please join us at the CIS Delhi office on Monday, January 23, at 11:00 for the seminar. The seminar will include the presentations by the speakers followed by an open moderated discussion.

Further, it is our great pleasure to inform you that in a recent judgement on the Super Cassettes v. MySpace case, the Delhi High has strengthened the safe harbor immunity enjoyed by internet intermediaries in India. As CIS was one of the intervenors in the case, and has been duly acknowledged in the judgment, we would like to invite you for an informal discussion about the case over lunch. This will take place after the seminar.

A brief analysis of the judgement can be found here.

Please RSVP by sending an email to Nisha Kumar at [email protected].

Address: The Centre for Internet and Society, first floor, B 1/8, Hauz Khas, near G block market, after Crunch, New Delhi, 110016.

Location on Google Map: http://j.mp/cis-delhi.

Philipp Theisohn

Philipp Theisohn, who was born in 1974, studied Modern German Literature, Medieval Studies and Philosophy in Tübingen and Zürich. He gained his doctorate in Jerusalem and Tübingen and, since 2013, has been Professor of Modern German Literary Studies at Zurich University. He has produced numerous publications on German and European literary history from the 13th to the 21st century, in particular on “literary future knowledge“, the perception of literary property, and Jewish Cultural Poetics.

The focal points of his work and research are the literature of Switzerland, literary property/plagiarism as a literary historical phenomenon, science fiction and futurology, realism, Franz Kafka and Early Modern Poetics of Knowledge.

Theisohn is intensely involved in the transmission of literature far beyond the academic environment. He is a member of the jury for the “Swiss Book Prize“ of the Publishers‘ Association, an expert for inter-disciplinary and literary projects for the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia; he curates literary exhibitions, is active in a broad range of journalistic work, among other things for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and is in charge of the blog and website of the “Schweizer Buchjahr” which contributes significantly to contemporary literary discourse.

Among his most important book publications are: "Die Zukunft der Dichtung. Geschichte des literarischen Orakels 1450-2050" (“The Future of Poetry. The History of the Literary Oracle 1450-2050”); “Plagiat. Eine unoriginelle Literaturgeschichte”( “Plagiarism. An Unoriginal Literary History”) and “Literarisches Eigentum. Zur Ethik geistiger Arbeit im digitalen Zeitalter” (“Literary Property. On the Ethics of Intellectual Work in the Digital Age”).

Kerstin Schuster

Having obtained a university degree in Romance Studies and Political Science, Kerstin Schuster worked in the bookselling trade. Since 1993 she is trading licenses for the international market. She has worked till 2001 for the literary agency Dr. Ray-Güde Martin, from 2001 until 2013 for the publishing house S. Fischer Verlag in Frankfurt, and since 2014 for the Droemer Knaur publishing group.

For many years now, Kerstin Schuster is also facilitating seminars on how to successfully offer and sell licenses in the international market.

Zakir Thomas

Mr. Thomas is an expert in the field of intellectual property. He has served as a former Registrar of Copyright for the Government of India, and as a project director of the Open Source Drug Discovery Initiative under the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (a premier R&D org). His expertise spans across copyright, open source innovation, neglected diseases and innovation ecosystem in science and technology in India.