How to lessen the load in Indian courts and speed up justice: the idea of neighboring courts
San Francisco has introduced the concept of neighborhood courts to handle cases related to low-level, nonviolent crimes. Under the plan, the accused person will be given the option of going to "
neighborhood court," where he/she could see his/her case dealt
within two weeks of getting caught.
More on
how it works:
...if someone is written up for graffiti, he or she can admit guilt and tell their story to a panel of people living in the community with the new artwork. The panel of volunteers would then give the violator a "restorative justice" assignment, such as cleaning up graffiti. After the walls have been cleared, so will the person's record of that particular offense. The entire process can take just two weeks, said a neighborhood prosecutor, and should cost $300 per crime—just a fifth of the price tag for putting someone through the criminal court system.
It is similar to what the Gram panchayats were supposed to do instead of handing out lucrative contracts. This can also be introduced in every colony in the cities. This can also be a useful crime-prevention idea if implemented honestly.
Labels: india, legal
The "greatest of all Internet laws" turns 15 this year
“Section 230”, or the Telecommunications Act of 1996: 47 U.S.C. §230, turns 15 this year. This is the obscure provision that protects internet computer services (websites, social sharing websites, etc.) from being sued for containing stuff that site users put in. Thus the praise, the "
greatest of all Internet laws".
Labels: legal
UGC 1 Politicians 0: The unstoppable rise of the citizen's voice
Everyone a reporter now. The rise of user-generated content on the internet and mobiles is forcing politicians to the proverbial wall, making them do more stupid things, as in the case of African countries of Namibia and Botswana where politicians are hitting back at citizen reporters with
Medieval/Soviet tactics.
Rattled by the loss of control over information (actually, the flow of it), politicians have reduced to leveling charges of racism in case of an editor in Namibia, and in Botswana they have passed laws making it mandatory for journalists and bloggers to register themselves with the government.
In this mighty age of user-generated content, will they require the whole country to register themselves?
Labels: citizen journalism, legal, mobile, User generated Content
The Indian Blogger as a Journalist, and legal implications
When the Supreme Court of India refused to quash the
legal proceedings against a 19 year old blogger from Kerala, Ajith, the decision understandably created a state of panic among bloggers and all of us who enjoy our power to express ourselves fearlessly on websites.
Some might think the days of free-for-all Orkut groups are over. Others will say they are in fear of treading against people with might -
the politicians, big business, virtually anyone with an army of lawyers, who, in this case are trying to put fear of appearing in courts for God knows how many times and thus choosing to 'write wisely'.
Sunny Deol's immortal "
Tareekh pe Tareekh" from the movie "
Damini" comes to mind.
However, I have faith in our Justice system. Bloggers are not going to face a million lawsuits in India.
Ajith chose to blog against the Shiv Sena and in retaliation, the Shiv Sena is suing him for defamation in Maharashtra. When Ajith appealed in the Supreme Court for quashing the case against him, the court refused, saying,
"We cannot quash criminal proceedings. You are a computer student and you know how many people access internet portals. Hence, if someone files a criminal action on the basis of the content, then you will have to face the case. You have to go before the court and explain your conduct."The Supreme Court did not buy into the defense's argument that the content of blog was restricted to a close community and had no defamation value, saying in essence that this was meant to harass a lonely blogger.
You might say the judges ought to have read the blog posts before giving a decision. However, all the court has done is to say that "
let the law take its own course and let the Maharashtra High Court look into the matter."Time has come for bloggers in India to stake their rightful place in the sun. Cases like Ajith indicate that people are listening to what you have to say. Some of these people are afraid.
Those who criticize bloggers say that content on many blogs is malicious or is written unsavory language.
The truth is,
bloggers make it possible that for every important issue, there are more than one or two voices.Bloggers make sure people know about the many sides to a story.
In this age of vested interests, media-politician nexus/media-business nexus, bloggers act as a check. All it takes for an intelligent person to have an open mind and read as much as one can about any issue. [note: The Times of India headline about this story is: "
Bloggers can be nailed..." I have seen worse headlines. Call me biased, but I think I can detect dislike for bloggers right there.
In Ajith's case, if the judges look at the blog posts in question, they will see that they are far less harmful, inciting or whatever than the average article in Shiv Sena's newspaper "Samana".
If biased and polarizing newspapers run by political parties can exist in this country, why can't a newspaper (a blog) run by a citizen?"I want freedom for the full expression of my personality." - Mahatma Gandhi
I found these useful lines from a post on '
Freedom of Expression in India' from Wikipedia:
The right to freedom in Article 19 guarantees the Freedom of speech and expression, as one of following six freedoms:
The Supreme Court observed in Union of India v. Assn. for Democratic Reforms:[9] “Onesided information, disinformation, misinformation and non information, all equally create an uninformed citizenry which makes democracy a farce. Freedom of speech and expression includes right to impart and receive information which includes freedom to hold opinions”.
With the same token Clause (2) of Article 19 of the Indian constitution enables the legislature to impose reasonable restrictions on free speech under following heads:
* I. security of the State,
* II. friendly relations with foreign States,
* III. public order,
* IV. decency and morality,
* V. contempt of court,
* VI. defamation,
* VII. incitement to an offence, and
* VIII. sovereignty and integrity of India.
The irony is: These restriction apply more to outfits such as the Shiv Sena and all those who take the law in their own hands in name of public morality, and to the mainstream media channels who don't think twice before giving airtime and print space to these people for sake of a couple of point ratings.
More than anything, cases like these create the so-called
Streisand effect, "a phenomenon on the Internet where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized”. This derives from a 2003 incident in which the singer Barbra Streisand attempted to use legal process to preserve her privacy, only to see the matter become far more prominent as a result.
We saw the Streisand effect happen in the Indian blogosphere during the
Chetan Kunte incident when Barkha Dutt, a mainstream did not particularly like criticism of her Mumbai Terror Attack coverage and sued the blogger. As a result, Barkha Dutt lost a number of viewers and admirers.
These are early days still for law and bloggers.
Read more on Bloggers as Journalists here:A Simpleguide to Internet and Cyber Laws in IndiaCan bloggers be journalists? Federal Court says yesBloggers and Journalists are now part of a greater wholeLabels: blogging, india, legal
The Wikileaks FAQ
I have tried to answer some important questions related to the
Wikileaks shutdown order and what we can do if we are in a similar position or if we want to bring the truth out by publishing important documents.
1. What is Wikileaks?A site that hosts leaked documents. Hosted on servers in Sweden so far.
2. Why did the court in California order it shut down?While the conventional reasoning goes that Wikileaks hosted documents that were illegally sourced, people in the know say that the judge may have given his order because they could not find the person to whom they could serve a notice.
3. Can a US court order a web site hosted in Sweden shut?No. But, the US government is supposed to have a great working relationship with the Swedish Authorities. In a previous case, the Pirate Bay was shut down (later, it relocated to Holland).
4. Can a site be shut down completely?No. You can host your site anywhere in the world. You can also provide copies of your site (or, encourage people to do so) spread throughout the site.
In case of Wikileaks, only the DNS servers, which are in the United States, remove the site's name from their database. So, you can still access the site if you know their IP address.
5. What else can I do to make sure my site continues to have a life?You can start with having regular backup files (e.g. .zip files) and distribute them, making them available as downloads via anyone who chooses to host the zip file.
6. What information did the leaked documents in question contain?Reportedly leaked by a whistle blower at Julius Baer, the leaked documents allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures used for asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion.
7. Can I register a site without giving proof of my address?The domain name system (DNS) is a service that converts web names into the IP addresses that the web servers use requires a real person to be registered as the owner of a site, irrespective of the site's location.
In case of Wikileaks, they are supposed to have registered their site in the United States having convinced an architect in New York to do the needful.
If you do not have such reach, you may try the following combination:Find a registrar or any web site registration intermediary who accepts cash and will look the other way while you enter false addresses and names, including a disposable email address, where you will be receiving the receipt from the registrar in the U.S.
Useful links related to the Wikileaks Case- Wikileaks.org IP address: 88.80.13.160
- The Julius Baer documents in question: http://cryptome.org/wikileaks-bjb.zip (3 MB file)
- List of Wikileaks mirror sites: http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Wikileaks:Cover_Names
- The complete Wikileaks site as a torrent: http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4034919/WikileakS.org_mirror_archive_(Feb_10th_2008)
Related MediaVidea Guide:Bypassing Internet Censorship - A RoundupLabels: censorship, controversey, faq, legal, tip, wikileaks
Facebook faces the Legalbook ahead
Yet another sign that the Facebook is on a bend. The social networking site faces potentially huge and expensive legal battles with various government authorities over allegations of harboring sexual predators, same charges that Myspace faced earlier.
The New York Attorney General’s office has reportedly
found objectionable pictures and assorted media on Facebook.
Om Malik says that today it is New York; tomorrow it may be any number of U.S. states.
So, may be it is true that
Facebook is desperate for money to be able to pay the lawyers. In Om’s words,
'Facebook needs a sugar daddy' - Myspace has News Corp to fall back upon, Facebook needs more moolah from Microsoft, which has been subsidizing it so far.
With this cash infusion, hopefully, Mark Z. and company will be able to use the hyped Facebook Developer Platform for something really useful for a change, and convince developers to think up innovative ways to moderate and filter Facebook as un-obstructively as possible, in return getting share of the juicy Microsoft handout.
All this is fine and dandy, but how will this site make money?
Labels: controversey, facebook, legal, social networking
The Wasted Parked Domains
If you were an enterprising online publisher, you would surely be unhappy with the ways of Parked Domain Players, most of whom have booked and parked topical 1-5 word domains as mere bank deposits.
This is shame, for these domain names cover some of the most desirable, albeit generic names – fight.com, pal.com, and others.
The domaineer’s logic is simple: wait, wait and sell the domain to the highest bidder. But, history tells us that so far only Business.com and Topix.com have netted the players good returns and I bet Topix.net was working just as fine.
A bootstrapping publisher can’t afford these domains and those that can will obviously focus on creating ‘get me some quick returns’ kind of publishing, which leaves out any scope for patient and dogged good content creation.
This article here has a
good list of great but sadly wasted parked domain names and their pitiful Pagerank and Alexa traffic numbers.
Some say, there ought to be a time limit for using a booked domains and I agree.
Labels: controversey, domain parking, legal
Chronicles of technology: 10 greatest legal battles
The Guardian lists out
10 greatest legal battles in technology and they are:
1. The Statute of Anne (gave writers a short term copyright ownership over their own works)
2. Bell v Western Union (the telephone patent dispute)
3. Marconi and the invention of radio (who invented the radio?)
4. Apple v Franklin (copying code)
5. The Betamax case (the impact of VCRs)
6. The Godfrey libel (libelous postings online)
7. The US v Microsoft (anti-trust, monopoly)
8. Dmitry Skylarov (DRM, internet laws and national boundaries)
9. MGM v Grokster (filesharing fallout)
10. Apple v Apple (Apple Computer vs Beatles’ Apple Corps – over logo)
The writer left out the “
Apple vs. Microsoft” case, (Windows being a copy of Apple), which would have Apple score a hat-trick of legal blockbusters.
We are still waiting to know
whether Facebook was a ripoff.
Labels: apple, controversey, law, legal, Microsoft
The Two-headed Patent Hydra
MercExchange, a small Viriginia-based company went to the courts asking for a injunction against eBay which uses the "Buy It Now" feature, an innovation reportedly patented by MercExchange. However, the Federal court
refused to issue an injunction. Reasoning this, the judge wrote,
'MercExchange has utilized its patents as a sword to extract money rather than as a shield to protect its right to exclude or its market share, reputation, good will, or name recognition, as MercExchange appears to possess none of these,'
The Patent problem can be seen as a
two-headed monster. First, you have companies, big and small, (aka
Patent Trolls) patenting just so that they can extract money or stop competition in any way they can. As a result, we have a treasure trove of patents, rarely used by mankind for any benefits. The Federal Court 's decision aganist MercExchange can be seen as an indictment against such practices. However, this alone can't solve the Patent problem.
To solve it, we must change the laws and for that we first need to find a way to curtail the lobbying machinery employed by Big corporations to keep lawmakers in check. Big companies use the absurd Patent laws to protect their Legal monopoly.
As they say,
"the laws apply differently to the big, rich and powerful".Come to think of it, what if MercExchange was a giant company that was suing a small company for Patent infringement?
Would the results have been different? I bet they would.
Related StoryLawrence Lessig's new plan to save the worldLabels: innovation, legal, patents
The 14-year Copyright solution
On the legal side, there are two main problems with this information - patents and copyrights. In both cases there is... too much of everything, which is bad for creativity so necessary in the information and entertainment businesses.
More than individuals, it is big corporations who would like to enjoy benefits of almost eternal (as it seems now) copyright, paying their overpaid and under-worked staffers in comfort for as long as they can, long after the creator of the original work is dead.
Now, Cambridge University PhD candidate Rufus Pollock has used economics formulas to calculate the optimal level of copyright- finding that
14 years is the maximum term for granting copyright status.
Although, it is impossible that legislators (lobbied by corporations) would go in for this optimal level, it isn’t hard to point out entities that would like this to never happen – Walt Disney Corp., for example, is famous for having ‘forced’ into existence the
Copyright Term Extension Act (also called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act) that made it possible for Disney to extend copyright on its brands such as Mickey Mouse for more time to come.
In short, the 14year copyright means hell for Copyright life-termers.
On the other hand there are publishers who are
up in arms against Google’s Print project, which is digitizing mostly out-of-print books. In this case Publishers are protesting because without protest there is no fun, is there?
Labels: copyright, innovation, legal, trends
