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Comments on the Broadcast Treaty and Exceptions and Limitations for Libraries and Archives
This November at WIPO the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights was witness to a tough negotiation on the proposed Treaty providing access to copyrighted materials to visually impaired persons. In between these discussions, the SCCR also found time to have two short plenary sessions on the proposed broadcast treaty as well as working documents on exceptions for libraries and archives.
Fixing India’s anarchic IT Act
Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act criminalizes “causing annoyance or inconvenience” online, among other things. A conviction for such an offence can attract a prison sentence of as many as three years.
Comments on the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (Draft)
The Department of Science and Technology invited public comments on the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (Draft). Accordingly, the Centre for Internet and Society has made the following comments on the draft policy document.
Breaking Down Section 66A of the IT Act
Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, which prescribes 'punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc.' is widely held by lawyers and legal academics to be unconstitutional. In this post Pranesh Prakash explores why that section is unconstitutional, how it came to be, the state of the law elsewhere, and how we can move forward.
Folly of Mandating Spectrum Auctions
The recent failure of the 2G spectrum auctions has brought to the fore serious questions on auctions being the only mode for allocation of spectrum.
Draft nonsense
Seriously flawed and dodgily drafted provisions in the IT Act provide the state a stick to beat its citizens with.
Pervasive Mobile Technologies: Meet Our Mobile Devices!
As a part of the Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace research project, the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is researching 12 mobile phone devices to generate a better understanding of the intellectual property (IP) implications of pervasive mobile technologies available in the Indian market. This post is an introduction to our 12 mobile phones.
Wikipedia Women's Workshop in Mumbai
The Wiki Women Workshop was organized at the Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Wadala in Mumbai on November 4, 2012. It was attended by over 60 women participants who were taught how to contribute to Wikipedia articles and briefed about the knowledge gaps in Wikipedia — the free encyclopedia. Noopur Raval has prepared a report of the event.
DoT Blocks Domain Sites — But Reasons and Authority Unclear
Earlier this year, ISPs such as Airtel and MTNL blocked a number of domain sites including BuyDomains, Fabulous Domains and Sedo.co.uk. Whereas the Indian Government and courts have previously issued orders blocking websites, these actions have generally been attributed to issues such as posting of inflammatory content or piracy of copyrighted material. However, the reasoning behind blocking domain marketplaces such as the above mentioned sites is not clear.
Transcripts of Discussions at WIPO SCCR 25
We are providing archival copies of the transcripts of the 25th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, which is being held in Geneva from November 19, 2012 to November 23, 2012.
Arbitrary Arrests for Comment on Bal Thackeray's Death
Two girls have been arbitrarily and unlawfully arrested for making comments about the late Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray's death. Pranesh Prakash explores the legal angles to the arrests.
An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at KMBB College, Bhubaneswar
The Centre for Internet and Society along with Odia Wikipedians in Bhubaneswar organized an Odia Wikipedia workshop on November 18, 2012. It was held in KMBB College of Engineering. Odia Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia in Odia language which everyone can edit.
Follow up to Wikipedia Introductory Session at Bharati Vidyapeeth — More Interested and More Involved Participants
A Wikipedia introductory session was organised at Bharati Vidyapeeth Engineering College in Delhi early this year and a follow up session was organised by CIS on November 19, 2012. About 12 to 15 participants attended the follow up session. Although most of the participants had attended the introductory session there were a few who were coming over for the first time.
Odia Wikipedia Gets a New Typing Solution!
Subhashish Panigrahi worked with Yuvi Panda to create a new typing scheme for Odia Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. This blog post gives a summary of this development and its outcome.
Open Government Platform: An Open Source Solution to Democratizing Access to Information and Energizing Civic Engagement
If government could release these datasets in open format for people to use & reuse, a whole lot of new innovative apps could be built around these datasets to provide better, customized services to citizens.
Typing in Indic Languages from Mobiles made Easy!
A new app is up for typing in Indic languages from mobile phones. This is is available online at: http://bitly.com/indictyping and supports on iOS. Android version is to be released soon.
Report on Wikipedia Hackathon held in Hyderabad
BITS Hyderabad had a tech fest from October 25 to 27, 2012, and wanted to conduct a technical wiki hackathon. We decided to do it on October 26 — all night.
Will The International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) Impact Internet Governance? A Multistakeholder Perspective
Pranesh Prakash made a presentation at the India Internet Governance Conference (IIGC) held at the FICCI, Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi on October 4 and 5, 2012. The event was organised by the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, FICCI and Internet Society. CIS was one of the supporting organisations.
Alt needs to Shift
People maybe talking more online, but they all seem to be talking about the same kind of thing.
Statement of Civil Society Members and Groups Participating in the "Best Bits" pre-IGF meeting at Baku in 2012
The Centre for Internet & Society was one of the signatories for this submission made to the ITU on November 16, 2012.
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