– Interception of messages from mobile phones, computers and other communication devices
– Blocking of websites in the interest of national security
– Measures to tackle cyber crime: fraud, phishing, terrorism, pornography
– The setting up of a Cyber Appellate Tribunal

We’re trying to locate an updated version of the bill; here’s a copy of the THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (AMENDMENT) BILL, 2006 (via PRS India), and a copy of the Standing Committee report on the IT (Amendment)  Bill, 2006.

We’ll update with more on the specifics of the IT Act; we’re looking, in particular, for the following:
– Interception of person-to-person communication, and the situations under which the government may be allowed to do the same
– Incorporation of a “Safe Harbor” provision, like the one that exists in the DMCA. This will free platform service providers like YouTube from the liability that accrues from users who upload infringing content.
– Liability in case of copyrighted transfer of data via P2P - with the person downloading, uploading or both?
– Provisions for blocking of websites: The Indian government did try to block access to certain websites two years ago. My views on the same: How Can A Few People Decide What We View Online? and Uncert-in Reasoning.

Note: the Rajya Sabha is going to take up the bill today, and if passed, it will be made into a law.

The battle is over Intellectual property rights on the Internet, and echoes what happened in India a few months ago, around the Indian Premier League; Cricket Australia has gone a step further, and, according to the New Zealand Press Association, signalled that it wants to charge Media outlets licence fees to supply content from its venues to commercial websites.

On why this is important, and other instances of issues over rights:

Similar issues:

– In November 2006, CA had restricted online video coverage of the Ashes, because rights had been sold to the BBC
– Last year, there was an issue between the News Media Coalition and CA over media rights for the Australia-Sri Lanka test match
– The Indian Premier League, in April, refused to grant accredition to websites including Cricinfo, claimed copyright over all images and imposed restrictions over their usage. 

It’s important for digital media companies - particularly publishers and agencies - to track these developments: I do think that as Cricket boards sense more opportunity for monetization via the Internet and mobile, they will begin carving out content rights by media (TV, Web, Print, Mobile) and geography, and offer exclusivity at a price. The Indian Premier League did that. The TV rights are already fetching cricket boards billions of dollars - they won’t mind a few million, or even $50 Million from exclusive portal rights.

P.s.: Wait till the BCCI launches its own TV channel…

Related:
–  In Dire Straits, Live Current Media Raises $2 Million; No MG for CLT20

Ravi Venkatraman, via a comment on this post, points us to the decision of the arbitrator, downloadable here.

Interestingly, one part of the complaint was that the domain was being used in “bad faith”:

One more important thing that in the opinion of arbitrator ” respondent’s other website www.iwantahotindiangirl.com should also be stopped because its an abuse for Indian women and I uggest that any NGO should think to file a case of defamation against the respondent for making such vulgar, voluptuous and dirty website on behalf of Indian women.

This is strange, because when we checked tamilmatrimony.co.in when we’d written about it earlier, the domain linked to an innocuous blog, and not to, what is according to the arbitrator, a “vulgar, voluptuous and dirty website”. It could be that the site never redirected to the domain, or perhaps Mobius linked to the blog before StartupDunia wrote about it.

Nevertheless - what matters is not that Consim now has the domain, but what they do with the site. We know about the recent issues around ClickJobs…how’s Bharatmatrimony doing?

“It doesn’t matter that thumbnails are much smaller than original pictures and are displayed in a lower resolution…By using photos in thumbnails, no new work is created.” [via Bloomberg]

Google has been facing issues over copyrighted content in India, and YouTube has been the prime target for content owners, in particular - T-Series. More on those issues here. Bear in mind that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is not applicable in India.

*

This development is also particularly interesting in the context of media companies in India taking content published on blogs. Mint did a fairly exhaustive story on media companies taking photographs off Flickr; Freelance writer Nita J. Kulkarni has published a list of instances of media companies taking content from bloggers, namely:

– Meeta K vs Times of India
– Nita J. Kulkarni vs Hindustan Times
– Priyanka vs Times of India
– Archana vs Hindustan Times
– Srinidhi Hande vs Times of India

More and more people are now writing about such instances, and photographers who publish their content online are now sharing notes, and holding focused discussions. Here’s the agenda for a Photo Theft Seminar; at Barcamp Delhi, over the weekend, Priyanka offered some suggestions for dealing with such situations:

TamilMatrimony.com is among Consim Info’s portfolio of regional matrimonial sites, and going by the logo, they have trademarked “TamilMatrimony” or “TamilMatrimony.com”. Consim Info also appears to have trademarked the names of all their regional sites - Assamese Matrimony, Bengali Matrimony, Gujarati Matrimony, Hindi Matrimony, Kannada Matrimony, Malayalee Matrimony, Marathi Matrimony, Marwadi Matrimony, Oriya Matrimony, Parsi Matrimony, Punjabi Matrimony, Sindhi Matrimony, Telugu Matrimony, Urdu Matrimony.

If NIXI does rule in Consim’s favour, perhaps Sanwal will receive some compensation as well. Remember that when YouTube got a ruling in its favour, regarding YouTube.co.in, YouTube.co.nz and YouTube.in, they paid around $6100 to the owner of the domains.

Update: Anand, in the comments suggests that we’re supporting the tamilmatrimony.co.in cause. That assumption is incorrect - we’re just reporting on a legal case. It’s for the arbiter to decide who is in the right. Personally, I think tamilmatrimony is just playing to the gallery with the “bullying” angle to it. If it’s trademarked, Consim has every right to file a claim with NIXI

Update: Download the Bombay High Courts Order here. (via)

Google India is pushing for the Indian government provide immunity to “platforms”: the company is facing cases related to copyright violation, illegal advertisements, hate campaigns and defamation. Two more issues, reported today - the first, in the Economic Times, has details about Google India being taken to court by Gremach Infrastructure Equipments & Projects because of blog posts defaming the company, seeking information on the blogger. The other, in the AFP, concerns the Supreme Court of India asking Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to respond to charges that they allow targeted gender selection advertisements; gender selection is illegal in India. Google India MD Shailesh Rao had said last year that he spends about 40 percent of his time everyday speaking to government officials, parents and children, and here’s a list of some of the issues that Google and its services have faced over the past couple of years:

Servers, Platforms and Immunity

At the regulatory discussion on mobile value added services last month, a representative from Google asked for immunity and a “safe harbor” for “neutral technology platforms”. Responding to the regulators suggestion that servers be placed in India, Google responded that the regulators stand “does not fully appreciate the reality of the global network architecture, and global organization structure.” Google wants to maintain centralized servers; keeping servers within India might bring user data accessible to Indian authorities, since they would come under Indian jurisdiction.

The discussion was around mobile service providers in India, but Googles stand is applicable to both the web and mobile. From their comments filed (pdf) with the regulator -

“VASPs instead play the important and sensible role of a neutral technology platform, with an obligation to follow lawful procedure when made aware of illegal activity. Such a “safe harbour” - in line with international best practices, could articulate that operators and VASPs should be presumed immune from liability for unlawful activity taking place via their services, unless it is demonstrated that they actively conspired, abetted or had knowledge of the act - that they be presumed innocent unless proven guilty.”

While they appear to be just the inverse of the other, the difference between the do-call-registry and a do-not-call registry is a very significant one - in case of the do call registry, most users are automatically considered to have opted out. This is a permission based regime, and the onus is on the marketers to sign up users.

So what can we expect?
I think one can expect sneaky, though not illegal tactics: users are likely to be signed up for telemarketing using promotional contests, with an agreement to allow marketing messages under the terms and conditions. For example, I’d used ibibo’s free call to other users signup for a story I did a few months ago. Late last night, I got an SMS push from them. I also continue to get messages about gigs from the Hard Rock Cafe in Mumbai, where I had given my number when I’d organized a Mumbai Meetup a few years ago…careful where you give your number.

Importantly
this is likely to benefit permission based services like mginger, 160by2 and, content and community based services like SMSGupShup and MyToday, much more than a Do Not Call Registry. Careful, though - no such thing as a perfect implementation. I wonder if either mginger or 160by2 are planning voice based services.

Hasbrok has filed the lawsuit in the Southern District of New York, reports Reuters; Hasbro’s General Counsel Barry Nagler has said: “We view the Scrabulous application as clear and blatant infringement of our Scrabble intellectual property, and we are pursuing this legal action in accordance with the interests of our shareholders, and the integrity of the Scrabble brand.”

Comparison Between Scrabulous And Scrabble
If this were it were a popularity content, Scrabulous would have won already. Take a look at the facebook usage comparison below, between Scrabulous, the Scrabble-like game from Kolkata based brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, and Scrabble - the game from Hasbro & Mattel:

Note that the US and Canada rights of Scrabble are licensed to Electronic Arts, hence this game from them, and this one from GameHouse. One should, also keep in mind that the Official versions of Scrabble went live earlier this month, and Scrabulous has been around since 2006. Given the lawsuit, reviews of Scrabble are simply on the lines of “Scrabulous was better”, “Pigs” and “Just Sour Grapes”. Note that Scrabulous has more fans than Scrabble on Facebook.

Scrabble Faces Issues With Geo Limiting Due To Split Licensing Of Rights
I’m tempted to say that the better product should win, but given the way Scrabble is evolving, it’s not really a fair competition. Scrabulous has evolved - gone beyond Facebook to email, developed a Blitz (time-limited) version, as well as a practice game module. Meanwhile, the beta version of Scrabble has a poor rating (between 1-2 out of 5) and faces multiple complaints from users - it is slow to load, slow to play, and most importantly, the geographic licenses apply.

A user rightly complains that his mom lives in Canada, and he lives in New Zealand, and they can’t play against each other. Others call the geo-limiting retrograde to ‘divide the world between North America and Canada and “THE REST OF THE WORLD”.’ Mostly bad reviews here. Whatever the outcome of the case, Hasbro and Mattel will have to get their act together.