India's copyright proposal: DRM circumvention OK if no intent to infringe

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/indias-copyright-proposals-are-un-american-and-thats-bad.ars

by CoryOndrejka • 16 years ago

120 13 16 years ago

manish• 16 years ago

From Wikipedia: "Andres Guadamuz, a lecturer in law at the University of Edinburgh discovered that the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) representing the U.S. media industry is urging the United States government to consider countries like Indonesia, Brazil and India to be put on the Special 301 watchlist because of them mandating or suggesting the use of open source software, somehow considering it as a harmful act roughly equivalent to not combating piracy, and not taking into account that also many of the U.S. companies that the IIPA represents depend on using open source software in their own business" I hope that India will always stay on top of 301 list

CoryOndrejka• 16 years ago

IIPA equating open source with piracy is among their most outrageous positions, previously discussed in this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1148079

Recall that in February IIPA requested that Canada be placed on the 301 watchlist as well: http://www.zeropaid.com/news/88127/iipa-demands-canada-be-pu...

_delirium• 16 years ago

That seems like an unwise gambit for them. People are probably willing to believe whatever you tell them about Indonesia, but Canada's generally well-liked, and considered an orderly first-world country (if anything, the stereotype is of this absurdly polite and well-behaved place), so there's a decent risk of losing credibility from being too hyperbolic about Canada as some sort of hotbed of lawlessness.

yardie• 16 years ago

Now that the White House has released opensource code for it's drupal stack, have known to dabble in free/open source applications, and are making extensive use of FOSS in gov.net will the US be added to this list?

Even if they aren't it would be whirlwind of irony.

CoreDumpling• 16 years ago

I applaud this move. It should force the IIPA to show its true colors, since it's not really "anti-piracy" or "copyright enforcement" that could be motivating their objections. India's offer already covers those issues sufficiently.

No, instead what they are after is further restriction on fair use and preventing threats to their business model from open source software and domestic procurement policies. What a surprise.

ajju• 16 years ago

To the unsung Indian bureaucrat(s) behind this proposal: Shabash!

vegai• 16 years ago

Well done, India. It's not bad at all.

WildUtah• 16 years ago

In México there are pirate DVD operations on busy street corners and ads on teevee trying to embarrass infringers. The government doesn't care. MPAA wants to charge one full week's wages at the legal minimum wage before taxes for each single copy of a movie and the state is just not going to make people pay that.

The IPAA people have to jail every digital device in China, India, Mexico, and the like to close their content, overturn the doctrine of first sale, and permanently deny all fair use. They won't be able to.

Instead what happens is that technology development gets blocked in the countries IPAA runs. It's illegal to jailbreak, unlock, and otherwise innovate with cheap mass market technology in the USA. And that just means the Congress is sending the future to China. Or México. Or India. Or Canada, apparently, if this article is right.

piguy314• 16 years ago

The anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA have been extremely damaging to innovation and research in the US. There was a great lecture at defcon 17 about the specifics of the laws regarding jailbreaking and reverse engineering (when reverse engineering actually is legal, usually only to create/implement interoperability).

https://media.defcon.org/dc-17/audio/DEFCON%2017%20Hacking%2...

nishman• 16 years ago

wow. this actually makes sense. i'm shocked.

man1sh• 16 years ago

This is pretty sensible. If India passed any draconion law, then it would be a trouble for the citizens who are already pissed off by high-prices of content that is pirated.

e.g. The price of buying a track is pretty high. $0.90 for a track in US is acceptable, but not in India where standard of living is not like other countries.

The chief reason piracy is a hit in India is due to stupid pricing. If a book costs $10, then it will surely be pirated by a lot number of people. Classical example was "Harry Potter" books. It was priced at 700INR IIRC. Not everyone can buy it. Pirated books were available at 150-200INR and sold like hot cakes.

Moral of the story: Fix your damn price and see the sales shoot up.

yantramanav• 16 years ago

The same is with music. The T-Series cassettes were prices @ 25INR and sold like hot cakes without a trace of piracy. Then the CD-DVD MP3s came and the stupid pricing started. Who'll buy a CD for 100-200INR if u get free MP3s without any hassles?

Yaa101• 16 years ago

India cannot comply with western copyright schemes, there are so many poor people that when you seclude them from music and software you'd have a civil war on your hands.

Besides, the western way is plain wrong, it's a big bet of them to gamble their employ-ability on IP, and it will go sour on them, no matter how many military efforts used.

India's copyright proposal: DRM circumvention OK if no intent to infringe

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