Original Fakes

fallacies, lies, and video pirates

Pranesh Prakash — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:33:05 +0000

Hello. This is the first of many irregular entries I hope to contribute to this blog. I hope that vibrant discussions ensue, with all points of views being put forth and debated. As it happens, this is a cross-post from the CIS blog. The two main points that underlie this post are that: (1) the notion of “harm” should be central to infringement of most forms of IP, as opposed to unauthorized/unpaid gain by someone else, especially if this gain is non-commercial; (2) the idea of public interest should form the crux of the rationale for, and thus limitations upon, IP.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organized its third annual conference on counterfeiting and piracy, with support from the United States Embassy and the Quality Brands Protection Committee of China (a body comprising more than 80 multinational companies). Last week we criticised the conference in an open letter. This week, we examine a few of the recurring themes that came up at the conference.

Something being substandard is not the same as something being counterfeit.

This was a mistake made by many whenever they invoked ‘counterfeit’ in the sense of something that is violative of one’s patent and trademark rights. The Indian Drugs and Cosmetics Act itself distinguishes between ‘misbranded’, ‘adulterated’, and ’spurious’ drugs, thus recognizing that something that is made without proper authorization from rights owners isn’t necessarily of a bad quality. Indeed, this was substantiated by an audience member, a lawyer from Dr. Reddy’s Lab. She spoke of a mandi in Agra where they seized medicines being sold under the Dr. Reddy’s name, but produced by local manufacturers. Upon lab testing, it turned out, much to their surprise, that the medicines were of the highest quality and were not substandard. Similarly, many large companies including trusted FMCG companies like Hindustan Unilever and ITC are upbraided by authorities for violations of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act (for the cosmetics they produce) as well as the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. Thus, even legitimate businesses can produce substandard products. Thus, a product can be unauthorized but not substandard, just as a product can be substandard but not counterfeit.

This distinction becomes very important when we talk about patents, and especially drug patents. A generic drug is by definition identical or within an acceptable bio-equivalent range to the brand name counterpart with respect to pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties. Thus, this entire category of high-quality drugs is often sought to be made illegal or counterfeit by large pharma companies. Some countries like Kenya have capitulated. But so far the World Health Assembly has been forced by developing countries to keep the issue of substandard medicines separate from patent-bypassing medicines.

The industry, for all their talk about “out of the box” thinking on the issue, still only consider metrics such the number of piracy raids conducted as measures of success. A question was put forth by Manisha Shridhar of the Intellectual Property & Trade Unit of the World Health Organization upon learning of the quality of the drugs seized at the Agra mandi: Why not cut a licensing deal with those manufacturers, who obviously have excellent production facilities? That kind of thinking, which helped HMV in India in the 1980s, and copying innovative features from video pirates and pricing their products competitively has helped an Indian company, Moserbaer, do extremely well.

Counterfeiters and pirates are not always seeking to fool consumers.

Only lawyers hired by the industry would think that a consumer aspiring towards a Rolex watch would actually think that the one he purchased off the streets for one-hundredth the original’s price was in fact original. Street-side DVD hawkers are not thought by the general public to be selling original wares. Still, despite knowing the difference between the original and the fake, consumers many times opt for the latter.

Having said that, counterfeiting, by using someone else’s trademark and trying to pass off fake goods as real ones, is quite obviously wrong. It harms customers, and it harms the manufacturers. Thus, a distinction deserves to be made here between the counterfeiters who try to deceive consumers (for instance by copying authenticity marks, like holograms, etc.) and those who are just providing them with highly cheaper alternatives (pirated DVDs, etc.). In this light, it is also important here to distinguish between counterfeiting, traditionally taken to be trademark violation, and piracy, traditionally taken to be a violation of international law, but now generally meaning a large-scale violation of copyright law. While the former can lead to consumer confusion, the latter scarcely ever does. This is ignored by industry people who evoke the image of the consumer quite often, but only when it helps them, and not in any meaningful manner. They negate consumer choice when it comes to consciously purchasing pirated goods, and consumer freedoms when it comes to usage of copyrighted materials.

While commercial film piracy funds terrorists, so does pretty much every business activity.

A favourite of the MPAA (and by association, the MPA) is the RAND report on Film Piracy and its Connection to Organized Crime and Terrorism. This report, which was funded by the MPAA, predictably concludes that film piracy funds organized crime and terrorism. Even if we are to believe its findings wholesale, it leaves us wonderng whether all business activities from which terrorists derive funds should be banned.

In India, there is a substantiated link between organized crime and film and music production, and terrorists have been said to make money off the stock market. If the MPA’s arguments are taken to their logical conclusions, then film production and equity trading should also be prosecuted. Furthermore, while the mafia and terrorists are the ostensible targets, the laws that are brought about to tackle it affect poor roadside vendors and non-commercial online file sharers. To tackle the funding of terrorists, roadside piracy shouldn’t become the target just as film production per se shouldn’t. The invocation of the RAND report is thus only meant for rhetorical effect, as it is hard to find logic in there.

“To copy without authorization is to steal”, the death penalty, and drug peddling.

At the conference, Dominic Keating of the US Embassy pointed out that “to copy without authorization is to steal” and David Brener of US Customs and Border Protection kept emphasising, on at least two occasions, that “drug peddling merits an automatic death sentence in many countries”. There are numerous arguments one can make to show the lack of thought in the former. One could point out that ’stealing’ and ‘theft’ are things that happen to tangible property, and that not only is copyright not tangible, but it is barely property. Copying without authorization creates one more of what existed, without depriving the authorizer (usually a corporation) of its original. This goes against our notion of ’stealing’. If the argument is to be shifted to the terrain of control over one’s property/copyright, Mark Lemley in an illuminative article shows how the economic theories behind externalities in property and copyright are vastly different, and that complete control over either has never been, nor should it ever be, an aim of the law. Simply put, someone free riding on your property leaves you worse off than earlier, while someone free riding on your copyright usually doesn’t.

One could also point out that ’stealing’ is endemic in activities involving human creativity. T.S. Eliot notes that “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different”. He does not even consider the possibility that artistic borrowing, whether by imitation or by ’stealing’ does not happen. Even Y.S. Rajan, Principal Adviser to CII recognized this when during the conference he noted that “imitation and innovation have an interesting and intertwining philosophical history”. If we are to take Mr. Keating’s admonishment seriously, we would indeed have a very illustrious list of thieves on our hands, including the Walt Disney Corporation, William Shakespeare, Vladamir Nabokov, Public Enemy, and pretty much every creative person who has ever lived. Books can be written about this (and indeed, numerous books have been), so we shall not dwell on this issue.

Mr. Brener’s repeatedly spoke of how drug peddling attracts death penalty in many countries (though in neither the US nor in India has anyone ever received capital punishment for drug peddling), but he also clarified that he is not advocating for the death penalty for copyright violations. That made one wonder why he was bringing up the death penalty at all. He also made the dubious, non-substantiated claim (noting it as “true fact”) that pirating movies is more profitable than selling heroin. This claim appears in an article about a report produced by the Australian Federation Against Counterfeit Theft (AFACT), but the original report is nowhere to be found. The article about the AFACT report also claims that the pirates are using their illicit profits promote drug smuggling. The seeming contradiction of film pirates investing in something that is riskier and less profitable doesn’t seem to have caught the eye of the writers. One version of the ‘drugs are less profitable than pirated DVDs’ claim (with marijuana taking heroin’s place) was debunked on the Commons Law mailing list. Pirated DVDs are sold for a fraction of the cost of the original. It would be obvious to anyone that DVDs that are typically sold for Rs.30-50, where the cost of manufacture alone may be estimable to be around Rs. 10, cannot be more profitable than heroin peddling. That apart, most online file sharing (deemed to be “piracy”) is non-commercial. Thus the question of profit does not really arise. Still, for the industry, absence of a profit is equal to a loss.

Thus, the rhetoric of crime, and that too heinous crime, is continually used, despite its being completely inapposite. Why does used to try to make IP enforcement a matter of state concern, rather than a matter of private, and civil, interest. This way, illegitimate statistics and factoids are used to make individual file-sharers who earn no money get lengthy prison sentences. This and other ways in which IP enforcement has expanded are carefully documented in this paper by Susan Sell.

Repeating false ’statistics’ does not make them true.

Again, we were subjected to a number of dubious claims during the conference: If only counterfeiting and piracy were eliminated, India’s fiscal deficit would disappear; the Indian entertainment industry loses 16000 crore (USD 4 billion) yearly to piracy; 820,000 direct jobs are lost due to film piracy; software piracy costs the industry USD 2.7 billion annually, etc. These reports’ methodologies have been thorougly discredited. Even The Economist, a very conservative and pro-industry newspaper, believes that the BSA-IDC annual reports on software piracy are utterly distorted. Similarly, in the U.S., the figure of 750,000 jobs (around 8% of the U.S. unemployed in 2008) being lost due to piracy were touted by everyone from the Department of Commerce, the Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Border and Customs Protection, and the MPAA, RIAA, and BSA. The amount of money lost each year in the U.S. due to IP infringement has been estimated to be between USD 200-250 billion (that’s more
than the combined 2005 gross domestic revenues of the movie, music, software, and video game industries). In a lengthy piece in Ars Technica, Julian Sanchez traces back the history of both these figures, and shows how they are just large numbers used for lobbying, and are not based on actual studies. The industry-commissioned Ernst & Young report (“The Effects of Counterfeiting and Piracy on India’s Entertainment Industry”) was never made available to the public at large, thereby making it impossible to judge the methodological soundness of the survey and the veracity of the figures.

IP expansion and more stringent enforcement is counter-productive.

Chander Mohan Lall, copyright lawyer to various film studios (including Warner Bros.) in India, used a number of short film clips in presentation during the conference. Upon being questioned about it, he admitted that he did not have permissions of the copyright holders, but claimed that his use fell under “the education exception” in Indian copyright law. While I wish he were correct (because what he was doing was indeed educational use), as per the law he is wrong. Section 52(1)(i) of the Copyright Act only exempts educational usage of cinematograph film recordings when “audience is limited to such staff and students [of an educational institution], the parents and guardians of the students and persons directly connected with the activities of the institution”. While there are other arguments he could seek to use to make his usage of the film clips non-infringing, being excepted by the educational fair dealings clauses isn’t one of them. Thus, more stringent enforcement of IP rights actually engenders such unauthorized, but perfectly legitimate copying and communication to the public such as that done by Mr. Lall.

Another way in which IP enforcement is being sought to be increased is by way of the so-called Goonda Acts. These are generally statutes aimed at criminals and lumpen elements in society. The Maharastra version, the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Slumlords, Bootleggers, Drug-Offenders and Dangerous Persons Act, 1981, just became the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Slumlords, Bootleggers, Drug-Offenders, Dangerous Persons and Video Pirates Act. The term “video pirate” is very widely defined, to include any copyright infringement-chargesheeter who is “engaged or is making preparations for engaging in any of his activities as a video pirates, which affect adversely or likely to affect adversely, the maintenance of public order”. Public order is deemed to be disturbed by “producing and distributing pirated copies of music or film products, thereby resulting in a loss of confidence in administration”. Thus video pirates can possibly be interpreted to include individual sitting at home and using P2P networks to share films. The only requirement is that they should have had a chargesheet lodged against them previously — they needn’t even have been convicted; being chargesheeted suffices. Thus, non-commercial activities of file-sharing are equated to bootleggers and drug smugglers, and preventive detention (an anti-civil rights relic of India’s colonial past) is applicable to them.

IP expansion is happening without the ostensible justifications for IP being kept in mind. That Tirupathi ladoos are going to get GI (geographical indicator) protection was announced at the conference with great pride. Geographical indicators are used to protect consumer interests, to ensure that no one outside a particular region (Champagne) can lay claim to be producing that product (Champagne) if the production of that product is intrinsically linked to special features found in that region (climate, etc.). However, no devout person would want to purchase anything advertised as “Tirupathi ladoo” if it were produced outside the Venkateswara temple at Tirupathi, thus the question of consumer confusion does not arise. What if someone malignantly advertises something as Tirupathi ladoo and claims it was made in Tirupathi (and not just that it tastes like the ladoo made there)? Such a person can be taken to task for deceptive advertising, and there is no need for something to have IP protection to do so. This represents a senseless expansionism of IP. It is now IP for IP’s sake.

One of the speakers, Mr. V.N. Deshmukh, who though pro-stringent IP enforcement, astutely noted that, “When local demand is not met, they [consumers] turn to counterfeiters and pirates.” Local demand can be unsatisfied because of lack of supply, or because the supply is overpriced, or because the supply is not easy to access, or because what is supplied is inferior to what is demanded. At the end of the day, as William Patry, Google’s lead counsel, has noted, what companies sell to the public are products and services, and not IP. It would thus be wise for businesses to be innovative and compete rather than trying to extend their monopolies and engaging in rent-seeking behaviour that is economical harmful to consumers. They would also do well to remember that IP is not only a product but an input as well, so they are ultimately consumers themselves. All the harsher laws and enforcement mechanisms that they push for right now will have unintended consequences, and come to affect them adversely.

Who owns your email account when you die?

Prashant — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:16:51 +0000

There’s an interesting article in today’s Hindu about who gets to access your email/facebook account once you die. I think there are two questions – who gets the right to access this information that is held by your service provider, and what can be done with this information.

ACCESS
As a quick response to this question, most online service providers recognize that their ‘privacy policies’ are subject to the ‘operation of law’. See for instance what GMail’s Privacy Policy has to say on information sharing:

Google only shares personal information with other companies or individuals outside of Google if..
We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request,

At the simplest level, this means that if are the deceased’s successor – say, the legatee under a will- you will be able to access the deceased’s email account according to this policy. Gmail also has a page giving specific instructions on how to access the deceased’s email. This requires, inter alia,

5. A United States court order authorising access to the specific email account in question.

Presumably this would include orders from Indian courts that are executed through US courts.

The Hindu article suggests that one can look at email accounts as ‘assets’. My reading of GMail’s Terms of Service suggests that things may not be as simple for the following reasons:

There is a disctinction between your email and your email account. While the email you send, and the Content of your email account is undeniably your ‘asset’ (since you hold copyrights over them), your email accounts are provided to you as a ’service’. This service may, according to Google’s terms, be stopped permanently or temporarily at Google’s sole discretion and without prior notice (Para 4.3 of TOS) . Further, “Google reserves the right to .. to pre-screen, review, flag, filter, modify, refuse or remove any or all Content from any Service.” (Para 8.3).

Google holds your Content not as a custodian in the sense of a bailee, but as the licensee of the copyrights in them (Para 9.4). This is a technical, legal point, but one with much legal import. As valuable as your email may be to you, if Google deletes your email account after your death, it will not be “destroying your assets” as much as simply withdrawing a service that is within its discretion. This would be the case even if Google does this during your lifetime. You are solely responsible for keeping backups of your own mail.

This is analogous to a situation where you are the heir of a famous author who had licensed their copyrights to be used by a publishing company. You inherit the copyright in the author’s works, but not the individual copies of the books which are stocked by the publishing company .

USE
Need to check the law here – I recollect there being a difference between the ownership of the individual copy of a letter itself, versus the copyright in what was written. Thus if I received a handwritten letter from my hero and Prime Ministerial candidate Lalu Prasad Yadav, I have the right to auction that particular letter and become a millionaire. I do not, however, thereby, get a right to reproduce copies of the letter, translate adapt etc. This would infringe his copyright if such use is not saved by fair dealing. (This is a point I have to repeatedly stress, since so often ignored in mainstream media – India has one of the most extensive regime of fair dealing rights and these rights trump copyrights in all kinds of ways. Please read section 52 of the ICA)
Some interesting US case law on the issue here.

What does this have to do with email accounts? I think this distinction would vanish. If Mr. Yadav sent me an email, for instance, I might notionally have a title over that ‘copy’, but for all practical purposes that title would be useless. Printing or forwarding a copy of the email would count as reproducing it – an infringing act unless it is saved by “fair dealing” exceptions (for instance private use and research).

(CAVEAT:I’ve only looked at GMail’s Terms of Service and so this post cannot be a comment on Yahoo’s or Hotmail’s services. I don’t think their policies would be vastly different, but you should check for yourselves)

One of the features of the ‘information society’ we inhabit is that I am convinced that I am never going to die. I cannot help this feeelng. For others, there’s a detailed article morbidly titled “Planning for your digital death” which gives you step by step instructions on how to, er, ‘plan‘ your digital death.

BSA’s response on Spicy IP – in perspective

Prashant — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 05:54:09 +0000

So the BSA actually responded to this scathing anonymous post on Spicy IP that offers rare insights into the way software piracy raids are conducted in India.
This response by the BSA is unprecedented, in that one has grown accustomed over years to being fed only trite, patently manufactured, always staggering figures of ‘piracy’ from the BSA stables. This attempt at conversation and legitimation is new.

In Hyderabadi there’s a saying that I’m fond of – Jiski phati chaddi hai, uski beizzati nai hoti – when you already have a torn “chaddi” it’s impossible to embarass you (as opposed to when your intact chaddi rips in public). One had grown to imagine the BSA as this imperious being with a torn chaddi and a tough hide that didn’t seem to care that nobody cared about its ‘fake figures’. Evidently, we are mistaken. Seems the BSA doesn’t like that it’s being called a bully-boy. Who knew.

Gratituous sarcasm apart (I couldnt resist!), I want to pick up on some of the elements of this response:

The market for market studies is always bullish
The fact is.
The limits of credulity
Search and Seize

Quo Warranto?
“Investigation”
Criminal Investigation

Issues of Academics and Research

1) The market for market studies is always bullish.

“Independent studies conducted by internationally reputable research organizations have found unequivocally that PC software piracy results in significant damage to the domestic economy through negative impact on a nation’s GDP, jobs and tax revenues to the government. It is in this regard that we wish to present a broader and more balanced perspective to the discussion chain below.”

I’m not going to make a refreshingly original points here by saying the following:

The BSA has, for years funded the IDC to cook up its figures. These no more count as ‘independent’ than if Xinhua declared the Chinese press to be free and open.
If any of these “studies” has disclosed a methodology other than idle speculation I am yet to see it. By ‘methodology’ I mean a means to discover truth (as opposed to a means to cook up lies to legitimate one’s position).
It appears evident that the BSA itself doesnt attach too much credulity to the details of its figures. A regular component of their piracy statistics have been grand promises of increased employment, foreign investment and taxation revenues in exchange for reduced piracy levels. Thus, in 2003, a 10% reduction in piracy could earn India 50,000 new jobs and added investment of $2.1 billion in the economy. By 2005 this estimate had doubled – now a 10% reduction in piracy would add no fewer than 115,847 new jobs, $5.9 bn to the economy and $386 million in taxation revenues. This appears to have been, even within the optimistic BSA-IDC camp, an ambitious exaggeration and in 2008 the BSA-IDC were more circumspect. A 10% reduction in piracy would now only add a paltry 44,000 jobs, lead to $3.1 bn in added investment and only increase taxation revenue by $208 million. A far cry from the dizzying days of 115,847 jobs and $386 taxation revenues.
I have already blogged previously on the deceit and the lies behind the claim of enhanced taxation revenues in India due to reduction in software piracy. You can also read about it on Rediff

2) The fact is.

The fact is, the software industry in India is one of the leading lights in the economy and has benefited from protection of software, including in international markets.

The fact is also that the software industry has been the most pampered schoolboys of the Indian economy for over a decade and has benefitted from inter alia, heavily subsidised rates of land and land purchase rebates, 10 year tax holidays, exemption from labour laws, power subsidies and many other state-specific concessions that would cumulatively add up to many thousands of crores of rupees of public money.
Also, India’s big IT miracle has ridden on the back of its being a favoured destination for “body shopping” in software. So the Microsofts, Adobes etc outsource their development to India and the finished product is always owned by the parent company. “Protection of Indian software” is like saying “Protection of the Indian Moon Rocket”. The category of the signified is empty.
Third, outside the elite preserves of the Microsoft/Adobe/Autodesk technoparks there is a different more quotidian IT miracle of “cottage IT Industries” consisting of assemblers of cheap software, basement cyber cafes, garage software development and web-services firms (according to one study this comprises almost 80% of the IT industry), neighbourhood schools and colleges with computer labs humming with pirated software installed. If India is the favourite recruiting ground for ‘coolie-techs‘ by the big ITs, this is largely because of the unacknowledged success of these cottage IT industries in proliferating IT across the country on a scale the Microsofts of this world could never have imagined or achieved by themselves. Show me an Indian born Microsoft employee who has never used pirated software and I’ll show you a liar.
All of the above to show that the BSA’s insinuation that the big software industry has engendered an economic miracle all on its own is as disingenious, as fake as its cry of “115,847 jobs and $386 taxation revenues”.

3) The limits of credulity

Knowingly breaking the criminal and/or civil laws of a country is a serious matter with potentially unpalatable consequences. To spin the consequences of one’s own illegal acts and point the finger at the software industry and the courts is approaching the very limits of credulity.

So say the experts in the business of breaching credulity. As I’ve mentioned before, this is an industry which obviously does not recognize “tax” as a law that must be followed. I wonder,somewhat idly, if promises made of additional USD 200 million in revenue, while siphoning off twice that amount to the developed world through DTAAs does not strain credulity. Incidentally, under the Indian Contract Act, a promise made without the intention of fulfilling it goes by a rather charming name – Fraud.

On a more serious note, BSA’s response typically skirts the question of the affordability of software. A simple comparative GDP table will demonstrate that selling Microsoft Windows Vista (Home Premium) in India for $226 has the same effect as selling it in the US for USD 10070. With IT having become one of the new passphrases for access to economic well-being, high software prices have the effect of determining who will share spoils from this new economy and who may be barred entry at the threshold. The stakes of not knowing how to use M$ Office or Tally are almost too enormous for India’s vast underclass of educated youth. For them, piracy is a too minor a risk compared to the hazard of being, once again, excluded from the means of economic self-actualization. Access to software is more than just the power to fiddle with sophisticated gadgetry, it is access to the nuts and bolts of the new economy itself.

This doesn’t affect the criminality argument that the BSA parrots with its Animal Farm simplicity – Breaking law bad. Following law good.

4) Search and Seize

“Out of 100s of cases filed over the last 10-15 years, there has not been a single software anti-piracy case where an incident of abuse of the court order has been brought to courts attention and courts have held the plaintiffs liable.”

As this statement rather alarmingly reveals, the practice of appointing Local Commissioners to conduct investigations in piracy cases – so-called Anton Pillar orders – has become quite common in the Delhi High Court. Most recently a Division Bench of two Justice Manmohans issued guidelines governing the appointment of Local Commissioners in Autodesk Inc Vs. AVT Shankardass. Divya Subramanian has an excellent article reviewing this decision, so I am not going to dwell on it in this post.

I want to confine my comments to an exploration of a theme that the Anonymous poster at Spicy IP hinted at – that in this case, the court order itself might constitute the abuse.

§4.1 Quo Warranto?

Section 75 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) empowers a Civil Court to issue a ‘Commission’ in fit cases-

(a) to examine any person (who is sick or infirm);
(b) to make a local investigation;
(c) to examine or adjust accounts; or
(d) to make a partition;
(e) to hold a scientific, technical, or expert investigation;
(f) to conduct sale of property which is subject to speedy and natural decay and which is in the custody of the Court pending the determination of the suit;
(g) to perform any ministerial act.

Rule 9 of Order XXVI of the CPC expands on the powers of a Civil Court to appoint commissions for ‘local investigations’. Accordingly:

In any suit in which the Court deems a local investigation to be requisite or proper for the purpose of elucidating any matter in dispute, or of ascertaining the market-value of any property, or the amount of any mesne profits or damages or annual net profits, the Court may issue a commission to such person as it thinks fit directing him to make such investigation and to report thereon to the Court:

Provided that, where the State Government has made rules as to the persons to whom such commission shall be issued, the Court shall be bound by such rules.

The powers under this rule are frequently invoked by plaintiffs seeking Anton Pillar orders (for instance, the application of the plaintiffs in Autodesk vs.Shankerdass). The adjective “local” qualifies investigation so that Order XXVI Rule 9 does not empower the civil court to establish its own investigative apparatus parallelling the Police. Thus, on the face of it, with due respect to the Delhi High Court, this provision can only be activated when investigations are sought to be conducted outside the jurisdiction of the court appointing the commission. This is fortified by the proviso which makes the Commission subject to the local laws of the State within which the investigation is sought to be carried out.

(Another alternative rule that the BSA response alludes to is the power of the court to appoint Commissions for ’scientific investigation’ – a power set out in Rule 10A of Order XXVI. However, the search and seizure contemplated in these cases of software piracy can hardly be regarded as scientific investigations unless one regards software piracy and blood tests as equal candidates of ’scientific investigation’.)

§4.2Investigation?

Even if we concede the statutory powers of a civil court to issue commissions for software piracy raids, it is still unclear what kind of an entity this Commission is and what it is empowered to do. Is it empowered to act in the sense of a Tribunal – to only admit, record evidence, examine witnesses etc – or in the sense of an active investigative raid party as in Income Tax cases?

Rules 16, 16A and 17 of Order XXVI suggest strong grounds to presume the former avatar – that the Commission is exercising a judicial function and not a police function.

Rule 16 of Order XXVI lays down the power of commissioners

16. Powers of Commissioners
Any Commissioner appointed under this Order may, unless otherwise directed by the order of appointment,-
(a) examine the parties themselves and any witness whom they or any of them may produce, and any other person whom the Commissioner thinks proper to call upon to give evidence in the matter referred to him;
(b) call for and examine documents and other things relevant to the subject of inquiry;
(c) at any reasonable time enter upon or into any land or building mentioned in the order.

This suggests an entity more akin to a Tribunal than a police investigative party. This conclusion is fortified if one reads Rules 16A and 17.

16A. Questions objected to before the Commissioner

(1) Where any question put to a witness is objected to by a party or his pleader in proceedings before a Commissioner appointed under this Order, the Commissioner shall take down the question, the answer, the objections and the name of the party or, as the case may be, the pleader so objecting:

Provided that the Commissioner shall not take down the answer to a question which is objected to on the ground of privilege but may continue with the examination of the witness, leaving the party to get the question of privilege decided by the Court, and, where the Court decides that there is no question of privilege, the witness may be recalled by the Commissioner and examined by him or the witness may be examined by the Court with regard to the question which was objected to on the gtound of privilege.

(2) No answer taken down under sub-rule (1) shall be read was evidence in the suit except by the order of the Court.]

This suggests that the Commission is meant to be an inquisitorial body and that the defendant has the right to legal representation throughout the process.

Rule 17 offers the strongest evidence that the Commission cannot act as a raid party. This rule clothes the Commission with the powers of a civil court – thus making it a Court.

17. Attendance and examination of witnesses before Commissioner
(1) The provisions of this Code relating to the summoning, attendance and examination of witnesses, and to the remuneration of, and penalties to be imposed upon, witnesses, shall apply to persons required to give evidence or to produce documents under this Order whether the commission in execution of which they are so required has been issued by a Court situate within or by a Court situate beyond the limits of ¹[India], and for the purposes of this rule the Commissioner shall be deemed to be a Civil Court:

When one is empowered to act as a Civil Court, in fact deemed to be a civil court, is there not a corollary obligation, a duty to function as a court?

If a Commissioner lands up on my doorstep and insists on conducting a raid instead of examining witnesses, can I lawfully resist him (if necessary through the use of physical force) on the ground that he was acting in excess of his powers?

§4.2.2 – Criminal Investigation

The Copyright Act offers the plaintiff recourse to a criminal investigatory apparatus if he/she so chooses. Since the 1984 Amendment to the Copyright Act, police officers of the rank of a sub inspector and above may, if they are “satisfied” that an offence of infringement is being or is likely to be committed seize without warrant infringing copies and produce them before a magistrate.
I know this is a dangerous path to tread – surely one cannot be advocating police raids in order to resist civil raids. However, it does beg the question – why employ a civil apparatus to do the same thing that the criminal enforcement machinery can accomplish with deadlier precision? And if a criminal investigative apparatus exists to do an identical job, is the civil court justified in inventing its own investigative machinery. Is this not tantamount to an intrusion on police functions by the judiciary?

The process of search and seizure by the police is governed by various provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure which strike a balance between the need to obtain evidence to try offences and the preservation of the sanctity of the domestic sphere from state intrusion. In fact it is these safeguards which prevent the powers of search and seizure from being violative of our Fundamental Rights under Articles 14, 19 and 21. In Pooran Mal v. Director of Inspection of Income Tax the power of Income Tax officials to conduct raids was assailed on the grounds of being violative of the the freedom to acquire and hold property (erstwhile Article 19 (1)(f)) and to carry on a trade or business (Art. 19(1)(g)) of the Constitution. Further, these procedures were attacked as arbitrary and hence violative of Article 14 of the constitution. The Supreme Court held that these “temporary incursions” were “reasonable restrictions” on the Article 19 freedoms since they were governed by statutory safeguards contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure. The fact that ample safeguards existed in both the Cr.PC and the Income Tax Act also negatived the suggestion of arbitrariness,thus saving the search and seizure powers under the IT Act from being struck down as unconsitutional.

As a broad proposition, it can be stated that if the safeguards while carrying out search and seizure are generally on the lines adopted by the Criminal Procedure Code they would be regarded as adequate and render the temporary restrictions imposed by these measures as reasonable. On detailed examination of the provisions .. it is clear that the Safeguards are adequate to render the provisions of search and seizure as less onerous and restrictive as is possible under the circumstances. The provisions, therefore, relating to search and seizure in Sec. 132 and Rule 112 cannot be regarded as violative of Arts. 19(1)(f) and (g).

We are, therefore, of opinion that safeguards provided in S. 165 also apply to searches made under sub-s. (2). These safeguards are
(i) the empowered officer must have reasonable grounds for believing that anything necessary for the purpose of recovery of tax may be found in any place within his jurisdiction
(ii) he must be of the opinion that such thing cannot be otherwise got without undue delay,
(iii) he must record in writing the grounds of his belief, and
(iv) he must specify in such writing so far as possible the thing for which search is to be
made,. After he has done these things, he can make the search.

These safeguards, .. also clearly show that the power to search .. is not arbitrary. In view of these safeguards and other safeguards provided in Chapter VII of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which also apply .. we can see no reason to hold that the restriction, if any, on the right to hold property and to carry on trade, by the search provided in sub-s. (2) is not a reasonable restriction keeping in view the object of the search, namely, prevention of evasion of tax.
The object of the enquiry .. is to reduce the, inconvenience to the assessee as much as possible so that within a reasonable time what is estimated due to the Government may be retained and what should be returned to the assessee may be immediately returned to him. Even with regard to the, books of account and documents seized, their return is guaranteed after a reasonable time. In the meantime the person from whose custody they are seized is permitted to make copies and take extracts.

I’ve included this lengthy quote to demonstrate the extraordinary legitimation test that something as fundamental to state governance – taxation raids – have to undergo before they are declared constitutionally permissible. It is doubtful that court sanctioned software piracy raids – severe transgressions on the fundamental freedoms of citizens for the purpose of securing private rights of litigants – would stand up to this test of reasonableness. Unfortunately, the higher judiciary in India has seldom insisted on the rigorous application of its own Constitutional standards to its actions.

5) Issues of Academics and Research

“the author has chosen to remain anonymous, calling into question the motivation of the author. This practice of anonymity should be discouraged in issues of academics and research.”

But secrecy, espionage and ex-parte orders are ok in the realm of business – real life. I’m wondering if in the interests of “academics and research”, the author of the BSA response would care to identify himself/herself and the law firm they represent. (Likely suspects: someone from SriKrishna Associates?). As an academic and a researcher I am extremely interested in how much they get paid per raid. And can I please have a copy of your extortion settlement agreements? In the interests of research. Hiding behind the BSA mask of course calls into question motives..

I’m delighted by this response by the BSA – I think it is demonstrative of the extent to which Spicy IP has managed to carve out a space for public debate on matters IP in India. As usual I’m all awe and admiration. :)

Madras HC orders review of Roche’s AIDS drug patent

Prashant — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:22:04 +0000

Another important victory for the Lawyer’s Collective and the access to medicine campaign. The Business Standard reports today that the Madras High Court has ordered a review of Roche’s valganciclovir marketed under the name Valcyte in India. This is described as “a critical drug needed for patients suffering with life threatening illnesses such as AIDS to prevent them from infections.” Excerpts from the BS report (also see the Lawyer’s Collective report):

The court’s decision is in response to a petition filed by the Indian Network of Positive People and the Tamil Nadu Network of People with HIV/AIDS against the Chennai patent office’ decision to grant patent for Valgancyclovir without hearing their pre-grant opposition.
The patent was granted for Roche in June 2007, without hearing the opposition filed by the groups alleging that the drug lacks novelty and hence non-patentable. The patient groups has maintained that the drug was first patented in the US in 1994 and as Indian laws provide product patent protection only to those drugs that are patented after 1995, and hence, cannot be considered patentable.

“Valgancyclovir is an important drug for HIV/AIDS patients and a product patent allows monopolistic situation in India, where the drug is sold at very high price. We are happy about the court decision,” said Loon Gangte, president of Delhi Network of Positive People (DNP).

Meanwhile, industry observers said the Madras High Court decision could impact another case being heard by the Bombay High Court between Roche and Indian generic drug maker Cipla on the same drug.

Roche had filed patent infringement case against Cipla seeking an order to stop the generic drug maker from selling its version of Valcyte, which was launched in January, this year.

From the Lawyer’s Collective report

At the centre of the dispute is the drug called valganciclovir, which is a prodrug of an already known drug ganciclovir. This drug is crucial for treatment of cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis, an opportunistic infection that affects persons living with HIV, and to prevent CMV infection in patients who have received organ transplants. At Roche’s maximum retail price of over Rs. 1000 (approx USD 20; 1 USD = approx Rs. 50) per tablet, a patient who has to take a treatment course of approximately four months for CMV retinitis would have to pay about Rs. 250,000 (approx USD 5000). This puts the treatment out of reach for those who need them.

In July 2006, INP+ and TNNP+ filed a pre-grant opposition before the Patent Office at Chennai objecting to the grant of a patent to Roche for valganciclovir and requested the Patent Office for a hearing. Under the Indian law, if an Opponent requests a hearing, the Patent Office is required to hear the Opponent. The Patent Office sent the pre-grant opposition to Roche and received a reply from Roche. Satisfied that the objections raised by INP+ and TNNP+ had been met by Roche, the Patent Office went ahead and granted a patent without hearing INP+ and TNNP+. The grant of the patent was published in June 2007. After correspondence with the Patent Office failed to yield any result, INP+ and TNNP+ filed a petition in the Madras High Court in October 2008. They alleged that failure to grant them a hearing amounted to violation of the mandatory requirements of the patent and also a violation of the principles of natural justice. The Assistant Controller, who had granted the patent, filed a reply justifying the grant. Roche objected to the petition on the ground that INP+ and TNNP+ could take recourse to mechanisms such as post-grant opposition or revocation available under the patent law to challenge the grant of the patent.

Fair dealing and the right to reproduce (articles)

Prashant — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:02:58 +0000

I’m still on my “fair-dealing” hobby horse. Earlier last week, in my post relating to the Mint Legal notice, I had rather hastily admitted that Copyright law might not expressly permit the reproduction of articles in their entirety. Now, I’m not so certain.

Firstly, there’s the express language of Section 52(1)(m) of the Copyright Act which reads:

“(m) the reproduction in a newspaper, magazine or other periodical of an article on current economic, political, social or religious topics, unless the author of such article has expressly reserved to himself the right of such reproduction;”

The clause creates a blanket presumption that all newspapers, magazines (including online) and periodicals can reproduce in entirety articles on “current political, social or religious topics” . This is subject to the author expressly reserving to himself/herself the right of such reproduction.

The article that sparked the Mint’s ire was authored by one Seema Singh. I just checked the Mint site and there is no statement by her either at the foot of the article or anywhere on the website where she expressly reserves the right to reproduce to herself.

Section 52(1)(m) only allows the author (as opposed to the publisher/”first owner”) to reserve the right of such reproduction – which means that HT-Media’s prohibition on reproduction in its Terms of Use will not serve the same purpose. The reservation must be “express” which means that it cannot be arrived at impliedly.

There are good grounds to believe that Section 52(1)(m) survives even the exclusive assignment of copyrights by authors to publishers, and may even be seen as an additional right in the hands of the author not enumerated in Section 14. It is the right of the author of an article of political importance to reach the maximum possible audience if she wishes, and not to be silenced by non-publication, merely because he or she happened to assign rights to a particular media company.

There is legislative wisdom behind the vesting of such powers in the author, and behind setting up the right to reproduce articles as the general presumption against which the author has the right to demur.
Secondly, the ambit of the fair-dealing right enshrined in Section 52(1)(a) and (b) is fairly wide and recognizes that the extent of permissible copying may vary with the purpose and characteristics of the use. Specifically, reproducing works to make them more accessible might amount to a transformational use even though it is not transformation in the sense of “altering the original expression with new expression meaning or message”.
(See THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS and SCHOLARS of the University of Oxford Vs. Narendra Publishing House The rule regarding “the extent of copying.. does not entail that the reproduction of the entire work would militate against the finding of fair use. There could be cases where the copying could be substantial and the courts finds fair use, at the same time there could be cases where the copying though insubstantial could be held as infringement”)
(See Also Kelly v. Arriba Soft)

There are a host of other authorities in India to support the view that CSE’s non-commercial, public-interest use will weigh heavily in the court’s determination.
I’m following this article up with a longer one that analyses fair-dealing in India.

The Crow’s Domain

Prashant — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 15:38:39 +0000

Chandamama is hosting some of its archival editions online for free view. Along with Amar Chitra Katha, Chandamama is probably one of the most extensive ‘popular’ documenter of folklore in India. I’m slowly going through the back issues accessible online and they are an absolute treat. I only hope they decide to make all of their rich archives available online preferably for free. I’m including one of the stories I read and liked.

Lessons in Cola, Copyright, Constitutionality and Generosity for dear Mr. Raju (from a self-appointed legal educator)

Prashant — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:08:01 +0000

I’m responding to Raju Narisetty’s blog post on copyright infringement, along with which he tosses in some rambling invectives against Sunita Narain and the Center for Science and Environment (CSE). In his words, “it all began” with his discovery of Mint articles archived at a site run by the CSE (www.indiaenvironmentalportal.org). The article claims that users and readers have absolutely no right to use Mint contents for any purpose unless The Mint expressly authorizes them. Mr Raju finds a gleefully irony in the fact that he can now accuse the CSE of a misdemeanor, as revenge for their having had the temerity to take on the Colas during their highly acclaimed pesticide campaign. I want to dwell briefly on his digs at the CSE, before addressing his observations on Copyright.

Coke
In relation to Sunita Narain and the CSE’s extremely hard fought campaign against the big colas, Mr. Raju scours the entire internet and finally handpicks this link - a monumentally stupid, 3 sentence piece in the National Public Radio’s website which says this.

“ In India, several states have banned the sale of Coke and Pepsi after a group called The Center for Science and Environment said the soft drinks contain unacceptably high levels of pesticide. The national government of India has said the Center’s data is flawed. But the state governments continue to ban the products.”

(I’m quoting the entire article, here and I hope Mr. Raju doesn’t give himself a nosebleed if he sees this)

While this snippet certainly does not tell you the “entire saga” of high toxicity levels in colas in India, it reveals much about Mr. Raju’s own worldview.

The CSE is a “group” – like the Taliban, the Bajrang Dal and the Indian Mujahideen – that is “prone to pointing fingers”, and is not the well-respected two-decade old research organisation that we know it to be. This ‘group’ is obviously populated by some nasty attention-seeking lunatics who are strangely influential amongst lowly state governments who irrationally ban the sale of colas. By contrast, the “national government of India” – the repository of reasonableness and true wisdom – is, however, wiser, and pooh-poohs the madwoman’s rants.

Undoubtedly, Sunita Narain is one of the many “self-appointed guardians of right and wrong behavior in our society” whom Mr. Raju cannot abide. Coke and Pepsi would, of course, do nothing of the sort since, as we know, Coke is an honourable man. In fact, they advertise with him, these colas.

Here’s a snippet from another article that tries to capture what the real pesticide saga is about.

The most common pesticides detected by the CSE in the samples were Lindane, Chlorpyrifos, Heptachlor and Malathion. Lindane accumulates in fat tissues and damages the liver, kidney, neural and immune systems, and induces birth defects and cancer. Exposure to Chlorpyrifos adversely affects brain cell development. Malathion causes dna abnormalities at all doses.

According to CSE, the United States has restricted the use of Heptachlor to underground termite control. If the results are to be believed, therefore, they could have serious health implications for people.

Why should a global company which provides quality products globally provide a substandard product in India? Equally importantly, will our government give more importance to the threat of reduced investment vis-à-vis a possibly very real health threat to the public at large?

It’s a little shocking that the editor of a major national newspaper would exhibit openly his ignorance of important public issues. Or perhaps he is only exhibiting his antipathy towards them. In 2006, at a Global Meeting in Istanbul, Coca Cola issued special-edition coins with “Coca Cola Republic of Happiness” inscribed on them. More than a mere marketing gimmick, I imagine this “Coca Cola Republic” to be an actually existing borderless nation-state with a devoted population that includes people of Mr. Raju’s ilk. This population emphatically denies allegiance to any of the recognized constitutions of the world, and is opposed to being identified with the peoples of any country. The ‘other’ of this republic is not any one sovereign state, but the “ordinary public” of the entire world.

Copyright
The pretext for this attack is equally ill-conceived. Mr. Raju is visibly pained that the CSE has not sought his express permission in writing before collecting the articles in its database. This “egregiously” violates, in his learned legal opinion , the Indian Copyright Act, 1957. At the heart of Mr. Raju’s attack is an extremely parsimonious view of freedom of speech and the press.

He plays the “poor wittle struggling WSJ-funded newspaper” card when he says that it costs him 8 whole rupees per newspaper that they produce, which they then sell to an avaricious reading public at a throwaway price of Rs.3. In doing so, they starve themselves in the public interest. It is only the disinterested beneficence of the noble advertisers that rescues him from the gutters.

Mr. Raju suffers from two types of delusions 1) firstly of imagining that his publication owns copyrights in its work because of his own personal belief in “never.. giving away content for free”. 2) secondly, that his publication’s copyrights supercede our constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of speech and expression.

In fact, it is the Indian Copyright Act (as opposed to the CocaCola Copyright Act) that confers on authors an ‘exclusive right’ to their work. The objective of this monopolistic right is not, contrary to what Mr.Raju may personally believe, to facilitate profiteering by newspapers, but is given in order to promote an active and healthy public domain. The right under the Act is not an absolute right to do whatever one wants to with information that one acquires ownership of. Certain acts are explicitly privileged in order to ensure that the opportunity to profit from information is not misused to curtail public debate and discussion.

Section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act sets out in elaborate detail the kinds of uses that do not constitute copyright infringement and includes “fair dealing with literary works for private use, including research, and for criticism or review, whether of that work or of any other work.” Fair dealing has been interpreted to include two elements 1) There must be an intention to compete and derive profit from such competition 2) unless the motive of the infringer were unfair or improper or oblique, the dealing would be fair.

Mr. Raju, has mercifully refrained from alleging that the site is trying to profit from his information and put him out of business. I’m not a regular user of the site Indian Environment Portal, but even a cursory glance shows you that its main intention is not to commercially vie with the Mint at all. The site provides an extremely useful public resource by compiling articles on the Indian Environment from different sources on one portal. If I were researching environmental issues in India this is one of sites I would likely start my search at. Merely linking would not serve the same purpose, since one cannot search through the contents of the site unless the entire article is archived. The fact that the National Knowledge Commission backs the website only augments its stature.

Mr. Raju may be right in saying that reproducing articles in their entirety may not be permitted expressly under the Indian Copyright Act. However, he is naive in supposing that is the only law that applies. The other important piece of legislation that he is neglectful/ignorant of is the Indian Constitution which guarantees the right to freedom of speech and expression and includes the “right to communicate” (by virtue of which the press itself traces its constitutional claim to protection).

Freedom of speech and expression is necessary, for self expression which is an important means of free conscience and self fulfillment. It enables people to contribute to debates of social and moral issues. It is the best way to find a truest model of anything, since it is only through it, that the widest possible range of ideas can circulate. It is the only vehicle of political discourse so essential to democracy. Equally important is the role it plays in facilitating artistic and scholarly endeavours of all sorts. The right to communicate, therefore, includes right to communicate through any media that is available whether print or electronic or audio-visual such as advertisement, movie, article, speech etc. That is why freedom of speech and expression includes freedom of the press.(THE SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF INFORMATION & BROADCASTING, v. CRICKET ASSOCIATION OF BENGAL & ANR.)

This is not a right that can be repelled unless on the grounds of “security of state”, “public order and morality” or “friendly relations with neighbours”. The commercial interests of The Mint do not, unless I am much mistaken, further the security of the state.

Bent out of shape
This isn’t a site that gives news about capital markets or provide corporate updates – the stuff that The Mint’s primary audience is looking for. It deals with our living environment, an inconvenience the importance of which the “Coca Cola Republic” steadfastly refuses to acknowledge. While it is possible that soaring markets might propel the denizens of this unreal republic into orbit (where they may eventually find an alternate environment to colonize and lay to waste), the rest of the population of this planet, and the last remaining generations of its progeny have this one earth to contend with. The meanness of mind with which Mr. Raju will not only refuse to be a part of the campaign to conserve our environment, but also try to govern the tools of its articulation by others is astonishing. It is a view in which noone is ever “saying” anything, merely selling products, in which one doesn’t launch a web-portal to say anything but to display, as wares, “intellectual property rights”, where human beings are reduced to “eye balls”.

Against Mr. Raju’s parsimonious view of the Mint being a vehicle by which “eyeballs” collaborate to help him to help squeeze out the maximum amount of profit he possibly can, I offer Vekatramiah J’s alternate conception of the role and importance of the press.

“The press as a medium of communication is a modern phenomenon. It has immense power to advance or thwart the progress of civilization. Its freedom can be used to create a brave new world or to bring about universal catastrophe.
17. Freedom of speech presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues than through any kind of authoritative selection. It rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from as many diverse and antagonistic sources as possible is essential to the welfare of the public. It is the function of the Press to disseminate news from as many different sources and with as many different facts and colours as possible. A citizen is entirely dependent on the Press for the quality, proportion and extent of his news supply. In such a situation, the exclusive and continuous advocacy of one point of view through the medium of a newspaper which holds monopolistic position is not conducive to the formation of healthy public opinion. If the newspaper industry is concentrated in a few hands, the chance of an idea antagonistic to the idea of the owners getting access to the market becomes very remote. But our constitutional law has been indifferent to the reality and implication of non-governmental restraint on exercise of freedom of speech by citizens. The indifference becomes critical when comparatively a few persons are in a position to determine not only the content of information but also its very availability.The assumption in a democratic set-up is that the freedom of the press will produce a sufficiently diverse Press not only to satisfy the public interest by throwing up a broad spectrum of views but also to fulfill the individual interest by enabling virtually everyone with a distinctive opinion to find some place to express it.”

Postscript

“The rapid growth in Indian media has come at the cost of ethics”
Raju Narisetti (Evanston, Illinois, 2008)

The editor of the financial newspaper Mint, Raju Narisetti, argued that the media in India wasn’t self-critical and there were few media-watching-media columns in the newspapers.
(Goa, October 2007)

How embarrassing.
Following a comment on Mr. Raju’s blog, I’m including a snapshot of page 7 of the 21st October edition of the Mint.
Its up here until I get my legal take down notice on account of ‘copyright violation’.

The ‘authentic’ tree

Prashant — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:17:12 +0000

In his paper “The Command of Language and the Language of Command” (Subaltern Studies IV) Bernard Cohn describes the successive labours of various Europeans during the 18th century in compiling dictionaries and thesauri of Indian languages. This task necessitated a Latinization of Indian languages – the tracing of a “root” /”original” / “pure” ancient language to which all other languages could trace their ancestry.

“Sir William Jones, in his declaration of the relationship of Latin, Greek and Sanskrit in 1785, provided the impetus for the development, largely by German scholars, of comparative philology, which in turn supplied the ’scientific’ model for the comparative study of law, religion and society… The theory of language implicit in the comparative method is that there are ‘genetic’ or ‘genealogical’ relations among languages which have been determined to belong to a ‘family’. What is posited is that there was once a single, original language from which all the languages in the family descend. .. The goal of the method was to establish a history; those features which appear from formal comparison as the most common in the family of languages were thought to be the most ‘authentic’. The end of the exercise was the reconstruction of ‘the unrecorded languages of the past’”

“The power of the comparative method was that it enabled the practitioner to classify, bound and control variety and difference. At a phenomenological level the British discovered hundreds of languages and dialects, and these could be arranged into neat diagrams and tables which showed the relationship of languages to each other. AS with genealogies, which could represent all the members ofa ‘family’ or descent group virtually as a tree with a root, a trunk, branches and even twigs, so cold dialects and languages be similarly represented and grouped. Significantly, the trees always seemed to be Northern European ones, like oaks and maples, and the British never seemed to think of using the most typical South Asian tree, the banyan, which grew up, out and down at the same time.

How and where not to use IT

Prashant — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:05:28 +0000

When I have more time, I’d like to dissect this news item – BMTC`s satellite tracking system goes off-track – more closely. For now, I’m reproducing snippets

At a time when navigation toolmakers are busy speaking of the global positioning system (GPS) technology and its future in the Indian market, the state-owned Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has some sour news to share.

It has posted a loss of Rs 1.42 crore after its experiments with the on-line and off-line tracking of buses over GPS failed — a pointer to how the marriage of technology and commerce can go terribly wrong because of a lack of foresight and faulty planning.

The BMTC implemented the off-line vehicle tracking system using GPS in March 1999 in technical collaboration with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) to monitor trip operations of buses hired from private operators and automatically calculating hire charges according to the kilometre covered on a daily basis. GPS units were installed on 200 buses.

But data collection turned out to be a cumbersome process, as it required personnel to physically go to each bus and download the data.

“In the absence of the provision for automatic generation of reports, a large number of staff was required to analyse data and prepare reports, which took two-three days. Such delayed information was far from useful as it was not available on a real-time basis for taking corrective action,” the CAG stated. In 2003, the BMTC decided to scrap the off-line system, resulting in the wastage of Rs 79.50 lakh.

Story continues..

Subsequently, the BMTC switched over to on-line vehicle tracking system designed to track the movement of a bus via satellite through the radio frequency signals from the on-bus transmitter unit. The captured data was to be sent to the control centre using GSM technology at an interval of 10 seconds.

The BMTC issued a letter of intent in February 2004 in favour of Arya Omnitalk Wireless Solutions Limited (AOTWSL), Bangalore, for installing on-line GPS technology on 2,000 buses at the rate of Rs 1,102 per bus per month for a period of five years. But the implementation of technology was easier said than done.

The CAG explained: “The GPS tracking facility was reported to have inherent limitations like a loss of connectivity due to selective availability of satellite constellation; buses not being in the direct and unobstructed line of sight with the satellite as large parts of the travel paths had dense tree covers, flyovers and bridges; between a cluster of high-rise buildings or while buses were parked under a shelter.”

Apart for these, technical problems like jamming of communication lines due to overload and cellular service not being available in the mofussil areas had resulted in disruption in service.

“Tracking data had not been continuos on many occasions and there were many gaps in the trip data,” the CAG said.

Fatuous India-related US consultancy services spending set to cross US$1 BILLION this year. No kidding! I swear it!

Prashant — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 11:04:44 +0000

In a study that costs US$ 10,000 to read, Access Market International, a consultancy which describes itself as “The Leader in Global SMB Actionable Market Intelligence” and “Go-To-Market Strategy” (huh?) says that “Indian small and medium businesses (SMBs) are on track to spend $1.26 billion on Internet-related products and services this year.”

Snippets from the study from our friendly neighbourhood Hindu Business Line who, I dearly hope, did not waste their good money buying such junk.

The study states that the while the Internet has become “a way of life” for medium businesses, barely 25 per cent of small businesses currently have an Internet connection. However, small businesses are embracing the Internet by “leaps and bounds”.

The study states that the penetration of Internet-enabled small businesses is anticipated to rise by more than four percentage points in the current year.

More than 50 per cent of the SMBs said they were in favour of an improvement in Internet speed. Thirty-seven per cent of the respondents said they would like to opt for a total revamp of their Internet access infrastructure such as replacing or upgrading their Internet access routers. Affordability and availability have increased broadband usage with BSNL/MTNL enjoying an SMB penetration of 44 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively. They are followed by VSNL, Tata Teleservices and Reliance.

The study states that SMBs are also heavily dependent on information sources such as vendor Web sites and search engines for gaining awareness about IT products and services.

So.. people in small and medium business are using google. Who knew. They are in fact, in favour of (and not against) improving internet speed. Hallelujah! This is so stupidly banal, that it MUST be dressed up in a title as fruity as “Go-to-market” strategy.

I think the secret to saying anything in this world and being taken seriously, is to insert mention US$ 1 billion in relation to anything you are talking about. US$ 1 billion is a sufficiently fatly rounded monetary figure that makes it hard to ignore.

Here’s another sterling example of corporate fat-headedness dressed up as market research. The Nielsen Company reports:

“Entertainment-themed websites are the most popular with mobile Internet users in the growing Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) mobile markets,

Entertainment, gaming and music websites rank among the top five categories visited in all four BRIC countries, unlike the mature markets like America and Europe, where information and news draw the most mobile Internet browsing.

Mature markets?! F#@# !! I feel like a disgraced schoolboy sitting here in this godawful immature market that prefers to use the internet for fun.

Sorry if I sound overly contemptuous.. I can’t help picking on wooly-headed ‘corporate research”

Update:
Here’s one from the Assocham assessment on ‘E-governance initiatives’

Releasing the Assocham assessment, its Secretary General D. S. Rawat
said, “A country’s e-readiness measures the current state of its ICT
infrastructure and the degree to which its consumers, businesses and
governments are able to capitalise on Internet-based opportunities. It
determines the degree to which a country is prepared to participate in
the networked world. The States have been rated on parameters: network
access, e-learning, network society, e-governance and network economy”.