Indian Copyright Bill Declares Private, Personal Copying "Fair Dealing" 192
asp7yxia writes "India's new copyright bill sounds like a pretty good piece of work: it declares private, personal copying to be 'fair dealing' (like US fair use) and limits the prohibition on breaking DRM so that it's only illegal to do so if you're also violating copyright."
+1 post of referral mastery (Score:5, Informative)
A link to boingboing that links to a blog that links to the WSJ blog post [livemint.com] that actually talks about the topic. Way to go.
Re:+1 post of referral mastery (Score:5, Interesting)
http://stealthisfilm.com (Score:2)
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You know, domain names are case-insensitive. It could just as well be http://StealThisFilm.com [stealthisfilm.com] and avoid being misread as http://StealthIsFilm.com [stealthisfilm.com].
And by using the anchor tags yourself, you can even add spaces: Steal This Film.com [stealthisfilm.com] vs. Stealth Is Film.com [stealthisfilm.com]. (See also "Pen Island".) And that also avoids including the period in the URL.
Indian Copyright Bill (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Indian Copyright Bill (Score:4, Interesting)
However, as a society grows and prospers, it becomes easier to survive by doing less. Nowhere else in the world, right now, can someone have so much comfort for so little an effort as in the USA. Thus, more folk are raised with less work ethic. More folk migrate to the prosperous society where they don't have to work hard. The ratio of folk that work hard and contribute to the growth of society vs. those who don't, decreases overall, and great nations crumble. This has happened hundreds of times in history before. One day, maybe, we'll learn how to outgrow such a lame habit.
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I take it you have never lived in Western Europe... where it is standard to have university payed for, 6-8 weeks mandatory vacation, national strong unions, free health care, and a social safety net large enough to hold a blue wale if you do in fact get fired.
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Why do you think we yanks rose to world power status so quickly, relatively speaking?
A clean-slate advantage, vast tracts of relatively unpopulated land and natural resources, coupled with a rapidly advancing technology base?
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A clean-slate advantage,
vast tracts of relatively unpopulated land and natural resources
coupled with a rapidly advancing technology base?
I am not disagr
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Just working hard in itself means very little, I'm sure the Soviet plan economists managed to get people to work but when you take away everything else it doesn't really matter. It's not that I work 40 hours a week (including lunch break) and have 5 weeks vacation that will be our downfall as long as we work smarter and leverage technology. Besides, with enough wealth I think all people will want to do more with life as per Maslow's pyramid.
What creates the huge waves of rising and falling nations is that t
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we put up with so much malarky it's sickening.
Legal Malarkey(c) is great business if your neighbors are Americans, have money and follow the Law(c), but not if they are poor and don't know or have much laws. Then it's better to teach them programming and export electrons to people with Money, and Legal Malarkey(c). Legal Malakey(c) is a products registered of exclusive rights. Copyright by US Global Marines Peace Media Theater Services Corporation. Legal Malarkey is licensed for production and sales for export by Walt McDonald, Mac Disney, Coca Elect
Re:Indian Copyright Bill (Score:5, Insightful)
Even now, any Indian would wet themselves at the prospect of being able to work in America.
producing little creative output(in before Slumdog)
I take that you do not know too much about India. I think it is short sighted to talk about a country you have not lived in for atleast few years. Whatever you think as true, might not be, you know.
I am an Indian, and I have lots of friends who went to USA, came back and do not want to go back there. Lest you think it is just anecdotal evidence, Jared Diamond, in Guns, Germs and Steel has quite a bit of literature specifically set for this scenario. His finding was that, even though living in developed countries provide you better healthcare and even better security, the overall quality of living actually is same or even lesser in developed economies compared to developing economies*.
The overall quality of life is determined by lots of factors - one of the most important being relations. Humans seems to be most happy with very close and extended families and lot of friends, which is usually lost in western cultures. Most of my friends are back here because they want to be home.
Regarding creative output, I would have to say that you are quite wrong in that aspect. Also it is not correct to calculate creativity based on how many hollywood movies that country has come up with.
We have our own genres of music, two of the most popular being Carnatic [wikipedia.org] and hindustani [wikipedia.org], we have our own genres of dances, the most important eight being Kathakali [wikipedia.org], Bharatanatyam [wikipedia.org], Kuchipudi [wikipedia.org], Odissi [wikipedia.org], Manipuri [wikipedia.org], Sattriya [wikipedia.org] and Kathak [wikipedia.org].
Please note that these are only the major ones known throughout India. Each state has completely different set of dances and music associated with it which people follow widely. In addition to these we have good literature movement, very good drama movement and each state has their own movie system too. India has more than 20 major languages, so the movies are usually made for one language only - i.e. why it is not appreciated much outside the country.
What I would suggest is do not go just by what best sellers and media portray - the actuality might be very different. Also, please consider that what you consider as happiness might not be the only scale with which others measure theirs.
* Unless they are in poverty.
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Correct Raj. Having more shopping malls is not a measure of development and progress. More people eating in McDonalds and KFC doesn't make India a happy nation. For India, happiness is mostly achieved by living together in family. You share your success and failures with family and lots more. It's more of a social issue rather than eating in subway or KFC.
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Correct Raj. Having more shopping malls is not a measure of development and progress. More people eating in McDonalds and KFC doesn't make India a happy nation. For India, happiness is mostly achieved by living together in family. You share your success and failures with family and lots more. It's more of a social issue rather than eating in subway or KFC.
you can't say that on behalf of the whole of india. i am an indian and those exact things (kfc, mcd, malls) make me happy. i hate the family culture here, it is just too full of hypocrisy. and believe me, most of my peers think like this too. i suspect people like you are in the minority.
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Humans seems to be most happy with very close and extended families and lot of friends, which is usually lost in western cultures.
Might be a good idea to visit the majority of western cultures instead, I think, such as those in Europe. You don't need to turn your country into a soulless corporate rat run in order to advance technologically and socially, thats just the most profitable way of doing it.
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I accept I was in the wrong to classify Western Cultures as not being family oriented. It was as bad, or even worse - as the OP telling all Indians would wet themselves in the prospect of going to US.
What I wanted to actually say was that -as per Jared - developing economies and even hunter-gatherer cultures seems to be as happy or even happier than people in developed economies due to other things which usually does not come in to picture.
When I tried to explain it, it came out wrong. My bad.
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I think that all people in poverty would wet themselves to get out of it is the take-home lesson here. But I'm sure there's at least one exception.
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It sucks everywhere. Remember that above everything else, and it will make you a better person to everyone else.
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Sorry, if my previous mail looked too nationalistic. I am a person who wants to be a global citizen in my views; even though I dont succeed all the time.
I completely agree that it sucks to live in most places - esp if you are quite poor. What I was just trying to say in my original post was that there are many other things which people do not consider when they ponder about happiness. I myself was not aware of it until I read Jared. So, I was just trying to put it forward.
Again, sorry if my mail looked like
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Re:Indian Copyright Bill (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm fairly sure that, having seen what the Mumbai slums look like, that they're about as awesome as being homeless.
Look at that little footnote indicated by the *. "Unless they are in poverty."
That's the footnote that swallows the rule. Mumbai slums are already being excluded.
Of course developing countries are great if you're not in poverty--the problem with developing countries is that there is a lot more poverty in the first place. And if you're not part of it, you can take advantage of it via cheap prices, cheap labor, etc.
Re:Indian Copyright Bill (Score:4, Interesting)
"Having seen what the Mumbai slums look like" -- where? In a movie?
The poor in Mumbai aren't all beggars waiting for a handout. Dharavi in Mumbai is the largest slum in Asia, but it is also one of the most productive places in the city, generating a revenue of a billion dollars a year [businessweek.com].
Also 85% of its households have a television [reuters.com].
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If your definition of "great" includes living in a walled community. I've seen the circumstances several expat friends live in, and while their salaries go much, much farther they also are basically forced into a mode of living that I don't think many of us would enjoy. I truly think that one of the average American's strengths is a naive fixation on middle-class sensibilities.
(portions of the east coast of America exempt from these o
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Are you using a capitalist model to define poverty or some other kind of model.
For instance there are much higher rates of mental health problems in so called developed countries, that's a strong indicator that there is in-fact a much higher level of poverty in areas where it actually makes your life better, such as happiness.
I believe that western countries are actually significantly poorer (maybe not in capitalist terms) and there;s a lot of evidence to back that up. Our gross contribution to global warmi
haha yea. 120,000 homeless (Score:2)
Re:Indian Copyright Bill (Score:4, Interesting)
Nail, on the head.
There's very little purpose to the 'my culture is better than your culture' rant, and this was one of the less reasonable ones that I've seen.
Offtopic (Score:5, Interesting)
Is anyone actually going to discuss the subject at hand -- copyright? Regardless of the cultural differences, ALL countries should follow India's lead. Why should noncommercial copying be illegal? If I'm not going to buy it, you won't lose money. People will buy it if it's worth buying. Read Doctorow's site, please (Little Brother is a good start).
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In this case, although fair, India is really just wanting to maintain the current trade balance with more western money coming to line the pockets of a handful of rich Indians who ruthlessly exploit all those Indians working in poverty (who on the whole a looking to emigrate to more modern democracies rather than continue to be exploited).
The continued low level shared piracy will mean that content full of promises and temptations, the carrot, which is far cheaper than the stick, which itself inevitably
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Read Doctorow. There's a history with games: Id gave Doom and Wolfenstein away, look what happened.
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yeaaa yaayyy you are american (Score:2)
its a great time to be an american !!
come on man. cut the bullshit (Score:2)
WHERE ?
in east coast, and west coast, a few enclaves, and maybe a few scattered enclaves around the continent.
excluding those you have bigots, mormons, rednecks, innumerable religious cliches that shun many aspects of sexuality.
give me a break.
Re:Indian Copyright Bill (Score:5, Insightful)
You fail an Internets. Bollywood "creates" nearly twice as many films as Hollywood, which are watched by many more people [timesonline.co.uk]. I guess you wouldn't class them as real movies, since they haven't figured out that the real business is in marketing and moichandising [wikiquote.org].
Re:Indian Copyright Bill (Score:5, Insightful)
You were 100% correct to put the scare quotes there.
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Avatar and Pocahantus [imgur.com].
Get my point?
Re:Indian Copyright Bill (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a false dichotomy. You make it sound like there's only two choices, live there or move to the US and they'd pick the US. What about the UK or Australia? Or (aside from the language barrier) Germany, France, or anywhere else in the EU for that matter? And I know plenty of Americans that drool of working in UAE for the high pay and tax-free status.
The only ones that want to go to the US are the ones that buy the lies that it's easier to start a business of your own in the US and make a fortune from it. But for anyone that wants to "work" somewhere for a paycheck, the US should be somewhere in the top 20, but not the top one, unless you have specific requirements for language and other things (like climate, I'm not a fan of the UK climate). How would you list the top countries to work if you could work anywhere without regard to language and such?
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Even now, any Indian would wet themselves at the prospect of being able to work in America
You obviously don't know too many Indians. I'm an Indian and stayed in the US for over a year. My wife and I had to fight to return to India - she almost had to threaten to quit her job unless she was sent back. So no - not everyone wants to go and settle in a foreign land.
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You really think so? I guess you never lived in a developing country. They are not all poor there are "first world" communities close to "third world" communities. Society concepts are also in the move. And they are in many cases progressive transformations (but there are exceptions). Beside many other effects, this means that "so called creative" jobs are also offered in India or South Africa or Brasilia. The only jobs which are cannot be offshored are services and construction. For example doctors or teac
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For example doctors or teachers or plumbers are required to be where they are needed
There have been trials run over the past few years where surgery was conducted via a remote link, with haptic feedback, from an entirely different continent. A typical bomb disposal robot has more manual dexterity that a plumber needs - they're too expensive now to waste on that kind of thing, but in ten years?
In short, don't be too surprised if it becomes cheaper to have a remote operator of a local robot than a local person for a lot of these tasks. And from there it's not a big step to replacing th
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When we get there. We have 2/3 of people out of work. We should really think of a new economic system, because the current cannot handle such situations in a way which is healthy for most humans. And you cannot train all these humans to become knowledge workers. Statistics show that only 1/3 of the population is capable of performing complex logic required for research in natural sciences, computer science, mathematics, and analytical social sciences. One part of them could be "nurses" who pamper old people
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Still, India has a lot less of a stake in those matters than we do -- they're one of the developing economies getting all of the decent jobs, producing little creative output(in before Slumdog).
Wow, that's like a home run of ignorance. You've literally never heard of Bollywood? India produces more film than possibly any other country... they definitely have the US beat.
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OS + Spreadsheet cost is equal to the average monthly income.
Brazil--
Average national monthly wage 2008 was apparently R$1515
Monthly wages of many young people around here that I know R$600
Windows 7 Home Premium price R$ 267,00
Office 2007 Home Win32 Port Fpp R$ 199,00
That situation has changed though. Until a few years ago wages were about R$100 lower, WinXP was around R$450, Office was around R$900. Don't know if the piracy situation will change, but I believe so, Microsoft is agressively (as always) bringing in low priced options, I believe mostly because O
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Re:Indian Copyright Bill (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not going to argue that the GP is right or wrong - I haven't talked to many Indians, I have no clue.
However, I will say that being politically active is not necessarily being politically effective. The U.S. has two major parties. Two major candidates compete for the Presidential election, getting anywhere from 95-99% of the total popular vote. You have two choices: right or left? And most of the rest of the world doesn't consider your left-wing choice to even fall left of centre of their respective political spectra. Where's your choice? Where's your freedom? Where's your free market? Politics in the U.S. is a duopoly. It's certainly better than a monopoly, no doubt about that. But how much better is it? How effective is political activism when you only have two real choices?
(Aside. Granted, the nature of the American republic allows for markedly different governance at the level of states. I'm painting an overly broad stroke, and the degree to which there is separation of powers between federal and state levels is a significant advantage that the American republic has. But at least on the federal level, where copyright law resides to the best of my understanding, there are only two real choices. Actually, come to think of it, you might have less choice than you think: the American constitution is written in such a way as to oblige - in theory with considerable exceptions that would take too long to discuss here - the federal government to follow international treaties that it has ratified.)
I won't pretend to speak for other nations, with the exception that I know that there are at least several [wikipedia.org], to put it mildly, political parties in India. However, in Canada we have four (foreseeably five in the next election) parties that may prove to have a significant share of seats in Parliament. While the NDP [wikipedia.org] and Bloc [wikipedia.org] (failed at figuring out how to directly link due to /.'s encoding) are generally not in the running to form government, they sometimes find themselves with the balance of power during minority governments when the two dominant parties (Liberals [wikipedia.org] and Conservatives [wikipedia.org]) are in a power struggle. Granted, this doesn't happen very often, but because of the significant minorities that they hold, they generally have at least a bit of political clout.
Tommy Douglas [wikipedia.org] is an important example. He was a social democratic (first leader of the NDP) politician who had, arguably, one of the greatest impacts in Canada's political history. He was the first leader/head of any government in Canada to propose that we constitutionally guarantee certain inviolable rights, which ultimately led to our Charter of Rights and Freedoms (since our Charter is part of our constitution, it is - again, in theory and with exceptions - supreme over other laws). He's also now widely recognized as the "father" of universal health care in Canada. He helped to accomplish and realize these two important (and many would consider essentially Canadian) feats without his party ever forming government at the federal level.
This is the power of choice in politics. This is an illustration of effective political activism on the part of social democratic supporters in the mid-90s. In Canada, at least, our expectation is that government will step in place to address the power asymmetry that arises between the industry and the consumer when competition in the markets fails.
(Aside. What happens when competition in government fails and there's a significant power asymmetry between politicians and citizens?)
Finally getting to my on-topic points. Now, again, I have little k
Re:Indian Copyright Bill (Score:4, Interesting)
It's also worth noting that we've had, what, 3 successive minority governments [wikipedia.org] in Canada over the last several years -- i.e. where the party in power does not have majority control over parliament. We're always told by the main parties (especially the governing ones) that minority governments are bad, but, honestly, it has meant that all the parties have to get along reasonably well because of an interesting balance. On one hand they have to make deals with the parties in opposition to them (bad), and on the other hand if the governing party falls because of a non-confidence vote (basically they can't get along anymore), they would have to face a new election which the Canadian people emphatically DO NOT WANT (worse). It's the one thing that Canadians agree on -- we do not want another election simply because our politicians fail to get along. The politicians are trapped up there in Ottawa, forced to get along, because they know that any party that precipitated an election without really good reasons would take a substantial beating at the polls. If the governing party tries to push something through that is unpopular -- bad idea. If the opposition parties try to oppose something for petty reasons -- also a bad idea. The government business is still happening, but the government in power has to be more responsive to public opinion and opposition views than normal. I love it.
The relevance to the issue here is instructive: there have been 2 tries to revised copyright law to make it compatible with the WIPO treaty. Both tries have included awful or botched versions of DMCA-like legislation (e.g., granting rights on one hand but making them impossible to legally exercise because of anti-circumvention rules). One was with a Liberal minority government [wikipedia.org], the other with a Conservative minority government [wikipedia.org]. The public outrage has grown stronger each time, and both bills died on the order table (essentially: presented to parliament but not passed). If we had had a majority government either of those times I'm sure the bills would have been rammed through and we would have had DMCA-style copyright law in Canada. Minority government is the main reason we still don't have DMCA-style anti-circumvention laws in Canada.
So, don't dread >2-party systems, just make sure the politicians understand that they have to get along or you'll take it out of them at the polls. These systems work fine when the usual requirement is there: a public that holds them accountable. When all you do is flip between one or the other of 2 options, that's harder, but having a third party that is NOT the governing party still means they can have a major amount of influence. They don't have to "win" to matter a great deal.
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How much political activism will be enough to sway either the Democrats or Republicans into supporting copyright reform that allows for such fair use/dealing? How can you be politically effective? Can you even be politically effective (especially if you don't have some strong populist message/position, as is the case with copyright reform at this point in time)?
That's an easy question to answer...
"How much money do you have?"
No amount of protest or activism here will change a politicians mind on either side
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Significant correction: I meant the mid-1900s, not the mid-90s. Tommy Douglas was quite dead and thus didn't have much political influence by the time the 90s rolled around.
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You have two choices: right or left? And most of the rest of the world doesn't consider your left-wing choice to even fall left of centre of their respective political spectra.
Or as a relative of mine puts it: "America has two parties: a right wing party and a righter-wing party."
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Copyright legislation like this are of a kind of recognition that media content should not play purely by free market rules.
Just a little comment here, but isn't legislation like this (which reduces the scope of copyright) actually making the market more free? Copyright is what locks up the market in the first place by giving the copyright owner the total (legal) monopoly on distributing certain content. If I want to watch a film I have the choice between paying the copyright owner via a cinema, or paying the copyright owner via a DVD/VHS store. While I can go to a different store or cinema which might allow me to "get a better
Re:Indian Copyright Bill (Score:5, Informative)
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I read one anecdote after another about terrible performance from Indian web designers, programmers, call center workers, etc.
One can prove anything by anecdote, even one after another.
A surprisingly well thought out law (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A surprisingly well thought out law (Score:4, Informative)
Not surprising if you realize that third-world countries are badly hurt by IP hoarding. It means they have to pay too much for books, technology, drugs, etc., unless they choose to pirate — which, of course, they often do.
I'm particularly grateful to India for their knockoff drugs. I don't understand all the legalities, but because of the difference in the way patents work in India, it's perfectly legal to reverse-engineer a patented drug and invent your own process for making it. In 2005, they changed the law so that patent holders can force makers of such unauthorized generics to pay royalties, but they still can't stop them altogether, the way they can in the U.S. As a result, unauthorized Indian generics are available for many drugs still under patent, at extremely low prices.
This affected me personally a few years back when I was unemployed, close to broke, and needed to be using a fairly expensive drug on a daily basis. It was particularly galling that the original patent on the drug had expired, but the company had managed to create new patents on the manufacturing process that still gave them exclusive rights. Fortunately, the same drug was available from India for a fraction of the cost. The downside was that my phone was obtained by various mercenary Indian call centers, possibly including the one you saw in Slumdog Millionair.
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It's almost like common sense! When you purchase a product, you own it and can use it how you wish, with the only restriction being that you can't duplicate it and sell it to someone else. So if I purchase a DVD, I'm free to put that DVD on my laptop if I want to watch the film on a long flight without being considered a criminal. It's so simple and obvious, you have to wonde
SuddenOutbreakOf... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm, lemme see... wise and profound old culture, who invented our modern numbering system over 2000 years ago, writes a copyright law in the 21st century addressing contemporary technology issues, and gets it substantially right.
Why am I not surprised?
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wise and profound old culture
Not too sure about the rest, but it certainly qualifies as old. Indian culture has no lessons to teach us that we haven't already learned, to be honest. Lets get that indoor plumbing thing sorted before we move on to cultural superiority hey?
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I love the way that we have now become so accustomed to bad copyright law that when one is written that is only a little bit absurdly unfair we heap praise on those authoring it. Copyright in India is still 60 years! And no work released with DRM on it should have copyright protection in the first place. The DRM violates the spirit of the social contract! It's the equivalent of publishing a patent written using whatever cypher was used to encode the Voynich manuscript.
This law is not good, it's just not as
Re:SuddenOutbreakOf... (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't want to respond, but I thought a bit of a perspective might help.
You know, there is a constant attempt to try and get rid of this problem. The solution to this problem is education and education is only now showing signs of improvement. As the GP mentioned, India has a very old culture and only in the last 50 years or so the country has been trying to get rid of this problem. Looking at the progress we made, we should be able to eradicate most of it in another 50 years.
Can you say the same of other countries ? It is not that long ago that the U.S. managed to mostly solve apartheid. How long did that take since the country gained its independence ? 200 years ? The U.S. by and large was made of immigrants. That means those guys went through hardships and came to the U.S. You would think they would have minimum common sense of how to treat other people. That didn't work out very well for colored people, did it ?
Humans are by and large animals. The only solution is education. Education takes time.
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and it doesnt exist in united states ? (Score:4, Insightful)
in your country, top 5% of the society has 74% of financial wealth. similar applies for income and total wealth. note that, financial wealth is much important because they are major tools for generating more wealth (investments, interest, instruments) and getting even richer.
so you live in this country, where 80% of society does with approx 15% of wealth. and in that country EVERYthing costs money. education costs money. a lot, so that if you dont find a scholarship, you start life deeply in debt. if you do find a scholarship you probably start life as an indentured servant. to start life without being bonded or indebted you have to be in the very, very tiny genious margin of 1/1000 of society. how many people are in there ? are you ?
staying alive costs money. getting a nose patched can cost an arm and a leg. (until the recent healthcare bill of yours), it was possible that you could be denied treatment even if you were able to pay your insurance payments, even if you were a kid.
rents cost arm and a leg. everything is sold from exorbitant prices despite being manufactured in china for dimes.
so. tell me.
are you fool enough to believe that a caste system in a country which 5% has 74% of wealth and 80% of society does with 15%, does not exist ? it was better in medieval code for fuck's sakes - serf was legally and customarily entitled to 33% of the produce from the farm they tilled for their lord
that is old data (Score:2)
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html [ucsc.edu]
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Disclaimer : I am an Indian.
I didn't want to respond, but I thought a bit of a perspective might help.
You know, there is a constant attempt to try and get rid of this problem. The solution to this problem is education and education is only now showing signs of improvement. As the GP mentioned, India has a very old culture and only in the last 50 years or so the country has been trying to get rid of this problem. Looking at the progress we made, we should be able to eradicate most of it in another 50 years.
Can you say the same of other countries ? It is not that long ago that the U.S. managed to mostly solve apartheid. How long did that take since the country gained its independence ? 200 years ? The U.S. by and large was made of immigrants. That means those guys went through hardships and came to the U.S. You would think they would have minimum common sense of how to treat other people. That didn't work out very well for colored people, did it ?
Humans are by and large animals. The only solution is education. Education takes time.
Wow, this is when I wish there was a special +6 rating for comments. Very well said.
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Quite the contrary. The US started off as a place where no rules applied, where the law (and not justice) was dictated by whoever had the power, whether by violence or by economic control. The propaganda skit may have been "the land of opportunity" and "land of the free" but those propaganda bits are only useful
Re:SuddenOutbreakOf... (Score:5, Interesting)
The caste system originally denoted the field of work you were in. Which is broadly Kings/Warriors, Priests, Traders/Agriculturalist, Artists/Service_Providers. If you are born to a potter, you will learn the art of pottery right from your childhood from your father. This was all the system was all about.
This was very recently twisted to classify low wage earning people into untouchables. This was nothing more than abuse of power by certain sects of the society, which mostly has returned to normal.
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Here's an observation that my sister made when she was in the UK for a year which might help you put things into perspective.
We belong to a backward caste, a reality which never really struck us because that sort of culture simply wasn't visible around us. Through our entire life no one asked us what our caste was, but when my sister went to the UK, every Indian would, for some weird reason, ask her what her caste was and revel in the fact that they were a higher caste. The reason for this is that they know
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I am an Indian. It doesn't give me any joy to say this - in fact, it is with much shame that I have to admit that a lot of people are treated in a very inhumane fashion in India despite all the advances. As much as I would like to believe that the caste system in India is dead, I cannot delude myself into believing that. Caste oppression is still very common. Dalits (the lower caste and the erstwhile untouchables) are still very, very badly treated across most of the country.
From 22 April 2010:
http://www.si [siasat.com]
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yes, a profound culture that still enforces a cast system, which says if you are born to a family that eats rats, that's all your ever allowed to be. one that uses child labour and has an active human slave trade.
It's quite apparent you don't live in India and go by what you read someplace about history, because not much of this is true today.
'Backward castes' of yester-year have outrageous affirmative action rights in India today. There is reservation in every sector for them regardless of their performance. People from these so called historical 'backward classes' are among the richest in India. You have a 'forward caste' student who works hard at his studies, but can't get into a college because a good percent o
Re: (Score:2)
If it's true... (Score:5, Funny)
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maybe the US should outsource law-making for a day.
I wonder why this is modded Funny, it strikes me as quite Insightful. One of the great tragedies of today is the global reach of the American Empire matched with its lack of introspection. However, if you look at previous empires, you wouldn't be surprised.
What about ACTA ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What about ACTA ? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What about ACTA ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, India isn't even involved in WIPO, ACTA's predecessor. This hasn't stopped RIAA and co from claiming that it infringes WIPO and shoving it on all kinds of black lists for that reason.
ACTA is mostly about western countries. Most of the developing countries are still coming to terms with WIPO, if they signed it.
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Also, India isn't even involved in WIPO, ACTA's predecessor.
WIPO isn't ACTA's predecessor. Look at the names - one is an "Organization", the other is an "Act".
Second, India is a signatory to the treaties that are precursors to ACTA, notably the Berne and Paris Convention Treaties, as well as the Patent Cooperation Treaty.
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India is not involved with ACTA. Most of Asia is not involved with ACTA. ACTA will only affect the consumer as far as I can see, and it sucks.
What sucks about ACTA? Assuming that you're a US citizen, there will be no substantive changes to US law as a result of implementing ACTA. Every provision in it already exists in current copyright and trademark law. Now, if you're in a country with weak IP laws, like Brazil or Mexico, it has some major changes, but not here.
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The US is planning to force other countries to accept ACTA as part of future trade deals, this will impact many Asian countries.
Wonder why ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Think back to pharma in India.
India needed cheap, quality drugs without the R and D backend to treat its population.
India did not have an export market for its own R and D, just the tech to produce very cheap drugs.
So India pumped out drugs for its needs and noted other countries wanted them too.
Suddenly what was an internal medical matter was a profit making dream.
With profit came R and D and finally India had its own big pharma.
Then came the fun pa
But... (Score:5, Interesting)
There's always something, and this bill's got quite a "something" in it. This is India's very own version of our Mickey Mouse Copyright Perpetuation Act (ostensibly having something to do with Sonny Bono, but we all know who it really was for...), and extends a fixed 60-year term to life plus 60 (see sidebar here [livemint.com].
Why in the world would we want to see copyrights get longer, anywhere? They obviously already provide an incentive at current levels. Even ten years should be an adequate incentive for 99.9% of cases, and you never want to write law based on the edge cases. With digital distribution speeding up how quickly a work can have its initial distribution, copyright terms should be shrinking, not growing.
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Bollywood.
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Copyright is currently life + 52 years for literary works in India. The change is only for photography, and will probably be applied to everything with no exceptions.
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and you never want to write law based on the edge cases.
I think you have that backwards - politicians salivate at the idea of writing laws based on the edge cases - PATRIOT Act, Megan's Law, Amber Alerts (and all the international derivates), drinking age of 21, drug possession "with intent to distribute" for drug quantities equivalent to that of a six-pack of beer - the list of these sorts of cockamamie laws that are aimed at exceptionally rare edge cases just goes on and on.
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We don't. The problem is, we aren't very relevant to the making of this legislation.
Tolerance!, and an appreciation for freedom.. (Score:2, Interesting)
needs the "suddenoutbreak" tag (Score:2)
I think it needs the "suddenoutbreak" tag.
I wonder if India is one of the countries in the ACTA thingie....
and what the NewYorkCountryLawyer has to say about it.
Re: (Score:2)
Except this was part of an expansion of power and coverage of copyright, it only looks benevolent from a western point of view.
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Why make DRM breaking illegal at all? (Score:2)
Making DRM breaking illegal only if you're breaking copyright is like making it illegal to use a gun if you're committing murder with it. The offense here is breaking copyright, which is already illegal, breaking DRM is just the means to the end.
Practically Speaking... (Score:2)
Practically Speaking, I would like to see the implications of this change of law in society. With respective of creative arts, many are not aware of what is legal and what is illegal. Seriously.
Many think, pirated DVDs are of poor quality and if you get high quality pirated DVDsit is worth their money to buy it. Legalese does not come into picture at all.
Majority of Indian's being aware of copyright laws one of one of best things to happen to country.
This change is definitely a fine piece of work.
Is any of this substanciated? (Score:2)
So who will provide the tools? (Score:2)
What difference does it make if they say you can break DRM in your own home for private use if the tools necessary to do so are still illegal to possess, sell, offer as a service, or otherwise traffic in?
Re:say again! (Score:5, Funny)
So it's not illegle to to brake the copyright unless you break the copyright.
Firstly, there are so many things grammatically wrong with that statequestionment-sentence-rhetorical-grammarfuck. Secondly, what about accelerating it?
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So it's not illegle to to brake the copyright unless you break the copyright.
Firstly, there are so many things grammatically wrong with that statequestionment-sentence-rhetorical-grammarfuck. Secondly, what about accelerating it?
O.K.
Soit'snotillegletotobrakethecopyrightunlessyoubreakthecopyright.
Re: (Score:2)
If the original is destroyed, lost or stolen. All the copies are needed to be destroyed.
Um, doesn't that kind of blow the point of having a backup copy?...