

India's copyright proposal: DRM circumvention OK if no intent to infringe - CoryOndrejka
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/indias-copyright-proposals-are-un-american-and-thats-bad.ars

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CoreDumpling
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.

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WildUtah
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
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...](https://media.defcon.org/dc-17/audio/DEFCON%2017%20Hacking%20Conference%20Presentation%20By%20Fred%20Von%20Lohman%20and%20Jennifer%20Granick%20-%20Jailbreaking%20and%20the%20Law%20of%20Reversing%20-%20Audio.m4b)

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manish
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

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CoryOndrejka
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...](http://www.zeropaid.com/news/88127/iipa-demands-canada-be-put-
on-301-priority-watch-list/)

~~~
_delirium
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.

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

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man1sh
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
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?

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

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Yaa101
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.

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

