In the context of the global economy Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) has emerged as one of the important modes of ensuring that cultural and economic flows occur within a given set of rules and regulations. This necessitates the disciplining of the activities of those who operate beyond the boundaries of the regulated formal economy. Thus IPR unfolds itself in the lives of people on a day to day basis, determining what economic activities they may or may not engage in. These boundaries are also backed by an omnipotent threat of coercive violence through the use of the police force as agents enforcing IPR. At the conceptual level there have been a number of challenges posed to the philosophical and the material basis of IPR. These range from the open source movement in software to the open revolution in content, music and publishing. This broad movement can be called the movement of the creative commons. What clearly inspires the open revolution is a dissatisfaction with the philosophical premises of IPR (romantic authorship, incentive theory, monopoly rights etc.) as well as a recognition that, given the distribution of inequality implicit in the global economy, there is a need to articulate a praxis that allows for more democratic modes of participation within the global economy. Legal scholars, lawyers, researchers, media practitioners and law students from across the country will discuss these and other issues at this workshop. We will also screen The Code - Story of Linux, a film that brings many of these issues to the forefront and Arjun Raina, actor and playwright, will perform A Terrible Beauty is Born, his play on work, distance and Call Centres.

                       

Workshop Report

[Day 01] [Day 02] [Readings]

Day One : 20th December, 2002, Friday

Sarai (www.sarai.net) in collaboration with Alternative Law Forum (Bangalore) held a workshop on " The Daily life of Intellectual Property Law". Participants included students, practitioners, thinkers, researchers from diverse backgrounds and cities.

The focus of the workshop remained pivoted around the politics of Intellectual Property, its emergence as a central feature of the contemporary and its interaction with issues posed by new technology.

The presence of an enthusiastic law student community was extremely significant and a 'necessity', marked by the need to shape and carve a substantial discourse on IPR issues, for concrete formulation of a dialogue around the practise and theory of these issues, for present and future purposes.

1. Introduction - Jeebesh Bagchi, Sarai/CSDS
2. Ravi Sundaram, Sarai/CSDS,Introduction to the Public and Practices in the History of the Present(PPHP) research work within the grey economy
3. Prof. NS Gopalkrishnan, CUSAT,Criminalization of intellectual property
law
4. Lawrence Liang, ALF, Emergence of IPR in daily life and language
5. Shamnad Basheer, Anatomy of a copyright raid
6. Anup and Vinay - Summary of MHRD report on copyright piracy in
India
7. Neha Mahyavanshi - The vendors manual on IPR
8. Sudhir and Lawrence - IPR cases and materials Database

The Code - a film by Hannu Puttonen on free software movement

A Terrible Beauty is Born - a reading/ performance by Arjun Raina

The morning session started at 10am, with Jeebesh Bagchi, from Sarai, providing a small introduction about the history and work of Sarai. Sarai, was concieved in 1998 as a space for collaborative interdisciplinary practises and research on Urban Culture, New and Old Media practise, and to create a context for emergence of practise and scholarship. Jeebesh emphasized the fact that the present "workshop" was not a "seminar", and the idea was to encourage debates and discussions arising from the questions posed by different speakers.

With this encouraging note, Awadhendra Sharan, from Sarai, took over, to chair the morning session, introducing the eminent speakers on the panel.

The first to share his views on the increasingly complicated polemics of IP was Ravi Sundaram. Ravi, is a Fellow of Centre for study of Developing Societies, and one of the initiators of Sarai. His work looks at the coming together of new non legal or "pirate" electronic culture and urban space, in the context of the contemporary. He is involved with the project, 'People and Practices in the History of the Present', (PPHP),at Sarai. Ravi brought to forefront, two significant changes marking the present. One the increasing expansion of the media and the State sponsored liberalisation policies, and simultaneously, the growth of a "media consuming public". He spoke of the growth of Doordarshan, in the 1980's, paralleled by the hosting of the Asiad in 1983, in the country, a spectacular event which expanded T.V viewership . We also witnessed the Rajiv-era discourse on computers, intimating yet another era of technological culture. The important thing is that the regulatory framework of the state was not able to deal with emerging technologies from the 1980's onwards cassette and video culture, and later the internet. This culture was centered around greyware culture and an informal economy that has almost defined it.

1990's witnessed globalisation, and an increase in the consuming Publics (as well as new large-scale inequalities), as well as the regulatory challenge to the state.. The informal production gave rise to an informal economy around flexible markets, whose territories were difficult to regulate for the state. Emerging corporate media entities have been pressuring the state to bring in place regulatory mechanisms to limit the informal economy. This has also combined with the state national security paranoia. We now have in a state, a large scale social conflict centre around media commodities which becomes important to document, as well as highlight past histories of the media, their relationship to the city, and the junction between legality and non-legality. This is what the PPHP project is about.

The young researchers of PPHP team then shared their works with all present.

Rakesh Kumar Singh, spoke of, and presented a graphic map of Palika Baazar, a market situated in Connaught Place, in Delhi, notorious for its pirated goods,particularly electronic medias. He spoke about the large holesale supply and flow of pirated cassettes/DVDs/CDs etc. in the market and this made it a constant, vulnerable target for police raidings. And yet despite of its susceptibility to the legal mechanisms, the place managed to function, profitably, nonchalant to its precariousness, and widely recognised as the "attraction of Delhi".

Bhagvati Prasad, who has been extensively combing Madipur area of West Delhi, a labour class settlement, shared his field experience and research material of the audio cassette piracy that is thriving there, profitably.He emphasised how the shops are themselves production (reproduction) centers of the tapes they sell and the systematic way in which sale and purchase deals are woven around it.

Lokesh, researching on the cable networks in an urban socio economic topography, pointed out the illegality, piracy, prevalant in this sphere, which the government remained hapless to tackle with. The industry, she corroborated, today stands at a wooping sum of 500 crore rupees, and thus the state's increasing anxiety for "control" seems understandable. She spoke of how the initial hub of this industry was the Lajpat Rai Market of Delhi, but soon other companies traversed into this limited terrain, for profit, and one witnessed the coming of Broadcasters- such as City/ In/Win etal. Monoply set, private operators dwinddled. Pirated film culture set in. Lokesh pointed out the impossibility to slam 'piracy' on cable T.V operating networks, because often the operators telecasted pirated materials through dispersed sources, thus making it exceedingly difficult to locate the "source of leekage" or infringement.

Ravi summed up all the interesting presentations and discussions around the issues, by posing that the consuming publics did not seem to have a "normative problem" with the "illegal" media domain. What is the public legitimacy to this ever increasing, mamoth regime?

After setting the pace of a rather thought provoking process, we moved on to our second distinguished speaker of the day, Prof. N.S Gopalakrishnan (CUSAT). He focussed on the Criminalisation of IPR, what it meant, implied, the structure and the politics of the debate. His talk revolved around Capital Formation, what it meant and for who, the Model of Development and IP Protection, in its and outside of, its context, how was criminal law and IP issues linked and what were the challenges in the face of the "Creative Commons".

Once again issues of global liberalisation, opening up of domestic economies were raised and the global trade being largely dominated by developed countries an important point to consider. Prof. NS Gopalakrishnan, drew our attention to the fact that till 1960's global scenario remained a field led by a few, but post 60's saw the emergence of other myriad smaller players in the market, positing problems in the global hierarchy. The Asian Tigers, Tiawenese, Koreans, Indians (in the pharmacutical market, entered in a big way) the Chinese, all were seen as potential threats to the existing imbalance of the 'big boys'. But then the large scale global penetration by the smaller market entities was not just an outcome of new technologies shaping up, redifining access, but also a certain level of sophistication that was implicit in the newer technologies.Thus the importance of IP protection became significant with regards to International Trade, the World Trade Organisation and Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights. Thus what was noted was the regulation of economy and industrial growth of less developed countries and also the control over grey market, the use of private property jurisprudence and protection of property using criminal laws.

Prof. Gopalakrishnan, then went on to explain and discuss the Model Of Development and its relation to NSG drew out a map which tries to chart out the various processes that interact to form a model of IP protection that merges and what this IP seems to actually protect. The core argument that was made was that IP is clearly intended to protect capital investments made in R&D, in manufacture and in marketing.

Who is then Investing? IP is then focussed on issues of Development, Industrial, Social, Technological, which sum up a paradigm for Quality of Life. Questions empahsised again were, Who will invest for all this?, What is the guarantee that a private investor investing in generation of IP will not have someone take away his investment from him?. Thus the logical conclusion was that he "needs" Protection.

Important here was the distinction Prof. Gopalakrishnan drew at the Creator and the Investor. While the language of IP speaks the language of protecting the rights of the creator it very often has little to do with the creator since the creator assigns his rights to the investor. What markets are being explored for wealth/profit?, thus "market" is'nt merely "domestic" but also implies accumulation of global markets. Thus arises concerns promoting private investment, protection through/ of private property, capital accumulation, subsequent domination by corporations, benefits for nations having global traders, eco/industrial growth through private investment, control of informal sector. What was also significant to not was that the language employed by IP was different from that of IP "rights", the latter following the arguments of rights and assertions.

Prof. went on to discuss the philosophical basis of IP. The most common argument that is raised is the Lockean argument of labour and conversion theory. However, very interestingly, he pointed out, how the protection is based on the notion of "possession" and not "ownership", where the "possessor" is who the state marks out, and not the "owner". Whose IP do we then pirate in the open market?

The tension that NS Gopalakrishnan raised is this: Are we willing to work within a paradigm of property jurisprudence and innovate within such a paradigm, for instance the way that the open source movement does or do we need to look for an alternative paradigm of development itself? What could be an alternative to Capital Formation?, How does one insure that property of the Creative Commons will not get converted into private property?, How does one think of an alternative legal framework revolving around the existing IPR? Through IP laws, the Development Model, did not work as a public benefit/incentive model. The disscussion that followed oscillated between concerns regarding patent, reverse engineering and policy making.

Our third speaker, Lawrence Liang, of Alternative Law Forum, addressed "Emergence of IPR in daily life and language". He started with posing the question raised numerous times earlier in the day, "What is about IP that is so strange? Most people do not have a normative problem with disobeying IP laws?". The argument made was that similar to the moment in the 18th century when the emergence of new lands' laws changes every aspect of daily life and brings a wider number of previously unrelated acts under the rubric of criminalization, a similar movement takes place in the context of the digital era, where because everyone engages in the copy and paste culture the very basis of IP laws stands threatened. The global move is then not so much on enforcement as it is on:
* The idea of re-educating publics about IP.
* The notion of criminality centered around it.

He attempted then to analyze some of these trends by looking closely at the way IP has emerged in the language of the ordinary and daily through the route of education. Using examples from WIPO and other IP initiatives meant at making IP a part of daily life. He then posed the question following from Jessica Litman's question- Why doesn't IP work?. Liman argues that it does not work because ordinary people believe that laws make sense and the IP laws as practiced just do not make sense to them This accounts for the gap between legal enforcement and everyday cultural experiences. The NII Report as also reflected in the MHRD report in India clearly stresses for a movementaway from enforcement to trying to enforce a change in the 'hearts' of ordinary people in their understanding and response to IPR, and this is the domain that is sought to be normativised through the program of reeducation.

The fourth speaker, Shamnaad Basheer, a practising lawyer, interestingly spoke of Raids, an experiential sharing from the other side of the fence, a lawyer's perspective. He mentioned how a raid order issued has to be specifically spelled and defined within its precincts of do's and dont's and a lawyer had to srtictly adhere to the written word or could be held guilty of transgressing the law himself. But he also added that the raided party, often was so overwhelmed with fear and anxiety of the moment that they remained ignorant of the raiding party's legal parameters and limitations of functionality, thus adding to their own disadvantage even more. Shamnad also shared how 'raiding' was really an attempt to send a 'wave' through the grey markets, a scare, a "we are watching.. beware" signal, and more often than not thrived on this particular efficacy of it. Otherwise it proved difficult to be "succesfull" always, either because given the nature of such networks, news of precautionary measures travelled fast and people became "careful", or often the police party accompaning the raiding party are themselves an accomplice in leaking information. Interestingly, Shamnaad mentioned, that fully aware of such police 'slips', the law had taken cognizance of it and could pass an order in which the identity of the party to be raided could be concealed from the accompaning police authorities, if need be, till the end. Another interesting case was that of the John Doe order, being passed in U.S courts, during Bruce Springsteen's concert held live, where the Star felt that by selling products bearing his face flashed on them and not giving him any share of the profit sales met, the hawkers were infringing on his property, hence he sought legal protection. Thus a blanket order was issued against anyone caught infringing, the raided remained an unknown, an unestablished, in this case.

Another point of reasonable interest was the SAP software coming into the market, where from the onset such strict infringement laws were promulgated to protect leekages, that due to lack of an easy access, and aquaintability, under such guarded regime, the software failed to strike a relationship with the consumers, remaining secluded due to excessive insulatory policies and hence failed.Thus, Shamnaad concluded, Microsoft played smart by allowing minimum piracy and leekages to gain foothold in the market and then pulling up its strings once the "public" had been safely procurred.

In the post lunch session, law students, Anup, studying at NALSAR, Hyderabad and Vinay Aravaind, student of National Law School, Bangalore looked at the MHRD, Govt. of India report on copyright piracy in India. The report, they pointed out, looked at enumeratively at the issue of IP and was not an empirical analysis, making its credibility suspect and limited. Vinay, spoke of the music industry piracy, how the industry remained small, thus limited production could not match up with the increasing demand. Gap between supply and a scaling demand, he held, led to large scale music piracy being prevelant. The report had summed up some causes for leekages and piracy occurences which seemed vague and superficial, such as overpopulation, unemloyement etc, lacking detailed studies and analysis.

Next, Neha Mahyavanshi, a second year student at the National Law School, Bangalore, spoke about the copyright manual for vendors that she is in a process of developing, which encompasses general understanding of copyright policies- areas covered under it, registration act, effects and processes.The manual (distributed among the participants) is an attempt to "simplify the meaning of copyright and to make vendors aware of their rights". The work on this is still in progress and is being looked at with inputs from various collaborative efforts.
   

Next, Sudhir and Lawrence, quickly spoke of the ongoing work they are involved in, centered around IPR cases and the mateial that they are in the course of evolving, a CD with compiled detailed information, which could serve as a great data base for any future research and works of IP.

Next Sarai held a screening of the film, "CODE" directed by Hannu Puttonen, which looks at the free-software movement, the growing communities around it and their point of views.

The evening saw the reading of the play,"A terrible Beauty is Born", written by Arjun Raina, a known theatre personality, at the Sarai cafe space. Arjun has been a voice expert trainer at call centers for about 4 years now and his play reading mainly explored the lives of the people involved and affected by the demands put on them by these services. The "voice" and the split it demanded in the personality of the professional, in terms of an acquired accented tone that bellowed through the speaker to recipients overseas, and the real "person" concealed behind this masquerading voice, remained an intriguing, symbiotic binary through out the theme of the script.

The evening ended with a huge public applause and dialogue around Arjun's reading.




Day Two: 21st December, 2002, Saturday

1. A summary of day one - Sudhir Krishnaswamy
2. Ravi Vasudevan, Sarai/CSDS : IPL and rethinking of cultural studies
3. Sudhir Krishnaswamy, ALF : The constitutional dimensions of the public domain
4. Arun Mehta, Moderator, India GII list : Software Patents: An illustration of the absurdity of IPR in the Information Age
5. Tripta Chandola, Sarai : Open Source Licensing - some comments
6. Jeebesh Bagchi, Sarai : From `free software` to OPUS (www.opuscommons.net)
7. Nitin Sawhney, MIT-Media Lab : ThinkCycle: Cooperative Innovation in the Commons
8. OpenRegistry by Sunil Abraham, Mahiti : The challenges of formulating a license: ThinkCycle

The second consecutive day of the IP law workshop, began with Sudhir Krishnaswamy, ALF, Bangalore, summing up the previous days discussions.

Ravi Vasudevan, a fellow at CSDS and a co-initiator of Sarai, writes and teaches film theory and history, was the first speaker of the day, speaking on "IPL and rethinking of Cultural Studies". He provided a critique of the logic of IP rights, examining it to see whether it draws heavily from the framework of 'cultural studies'. Is there an inherent contradiction prevalent here? Ravi spoke of the "spectator" of the cultural engagements and his realtion to IP. He emphasised the role of the cultural usage and practise in studying of IP. With regards to IP, central debates were that of Authorship, Originality, Idea versus Expression dialectics of an argument. Ravi pointed out , how the author is displaced through a critique in IP, from a cultural perspective to look at the other frameworks of collaboration/ authorship etc. Cultural studies looks at the entire hierarchy of cultural practises and tries to mark out how/why of this hierarchy, thus in some senses loosening/over-riding them. Hence, here the "spectator" assumes a position of importance through this process of "unpicking". A spectatorship is able to give, attach, create multiple meanings to things one views. Here Ravi pointed out the furore the South Indian star, Rajnikant has created, emphasising his exclusive rights over his 'Public Image', looking at anyone copying his style as an infringer of his IP. This attempt by the actor to secure his public image actually saw IPR fuctioning in a repressive manner, in this case curtailing other practises or meanings that a spectator could derive out of it. Another point to which Ravi drew our attention to was the constant usage of the term "end user", to connote the cultural consumer/user.This, he stressed sounded like an enumerative category, a statistical identity of the user as if , symbolic of a long preeceding chain of production, distribution, circulation, where the "cultural user" was the last on the other end. But in the volatile era of shifting IP, rights, producer, distributer, a putative consumer status, one had also witnessed an interceding figure, the Pirate. Could then, the Pirate also be seen as another "end user", in some ways as someone who reframes, recycles the object and reconstitutes the market? Thus, he posited, then a Cultural subject, in realation to IP, could also be a Pirate.

Ravi, then once again drew light on the Rajnikant debate centered around "his" rights to "his" IP. How does the extended public image, the created "I", the "possession", become in the understanding of the person's involved, the possessor, of his or her rightful IP? Under what claims? Leading to what sort of implications? The ruling force at play is the "desire" propelled by the need to "control" "access" to the images of his copies. Thus, in a sense the actor exhibits a refusal of his image to participate in its access to the consumer, whereas ironically, without this consumer access in the first place, the image would not have the meaning that it has.Then Ravi went on to speak of the controversy around Shashilal Nair's latest film, Ek Choti Si Love Story, where Manisha Koirala, the actress involved, put forth her claims over her public image being tarnished and exploited because of indecent, vulgar projections/publicity of her body in the film, outside her wishes. Here again there were three things at play - the dignity of the "body" of the star, the dispalcement of that "body" by a copy (another person's visuals were used), and thus a violation of the image of the actress . Here again the debate revolved around "desire" and control" of "access", desire somewhere tainted by anxiety over protection of a "public image". He showed us an excerpt from a marathi film "Sant Tukaram/ Saint Tukaram", where Tukaram spoke to Shivaji, about every one's predestined social positions and responsibilities, and how thus the roles are marked for all to follow. And then there was a sudden enemy attack, a sudden movement, cinematically and visually, where a thousand copies of the Saint and Shivaji were released from the mute icons of the various Gods and Godesses making it impossible for a harrassed enemy to distinguish between the "orignal" and the "mirror" images of the protagonists. Ravi used this cinematic clipping as a metaphor to demark the significance of an image and its copies in the context of IP being discussed in a cultural framework.

Sudhir Krishnaswamy, from ALF, spoke about "The constitutional dimensions of the public domain". He began by outlining the reasons why constitutional arguments have come to be used in US in the 1990s. The use of constitutional arguments was designed to overcome interest group capture of Congress which continued to enact wider and stronger IP protection. Further the presence of a IP clause in the US constitution offers hope that arguments of principle will trump policy arguments raised by IP advocates. Contrastingly IP debates in India are not concerned with the form of knowledge regulation but whether such protection serves the national interest. This is evidenced by the recent debates on how traditional knowledge should be protected.

He then moved on to outline the arguments raised in the Eldred v Ashcroft case. There are two types of arguments that may be raised to define IP policy in the US. The scope and content of the IP clause in the constitution and its conflict with the free speech and expression clause. Neither of these two arguments are applicable with the same strength in the context of the Indian constitution. Moreover they are unlikely to be raised because they may take away from the causes sought to be promoted by most IP advocates in India today.

He then used the traditional knowledge debate to illustrate why the public domain has been an underrepresented interested. By mapping out the various advocates and positions of the debate he argued that as public domain arguments do not align with national interest arguments they are unlikely to be given the same scope and play as in the US.

Tripta, Sarai, spoke on "Open Source Licensing" - sharing her reflections and comments. It attempted to evaluate how the open source discourse has entered into other discourses (socio-economic-political-cultural and legal) making it important to rework around the language and definitions within these. It began with a brief introduction on the 'history of computing'; how the source code was always kept open in the public domain and what differences in the software development and the culture around it were brought in by 'copyrighting' the software. It then did a brief analysis of the licenses: GNUGPL, Aristic license and the BSD license commenting on the variations within them in regards to how and in what manner these have deviated from the 'original' ideas of 'freedom' and 'openess' as put forward by Richard Stallman and incorporated within the GNUGPL. The language of the open source license was compared to that of the others to show the level of intimidation and obfuscation they project. Somewhere what was of importance was how the user negotiates between the dimensions of his works and what the licenses he weighed them against, had to offer.

Arun Mehta, Moderator, India GII list, next spoke on "Software Patents: An illustration of the absurdity of IPR in the Information Age". He emphasised that an "invention" cannot be termed as one's alone, because it can be modified or replicated. He looked at how information earlier travelled in a "solid" form , namely through books, letters etc, then the radio and T.V. were like the "rivers of information" and the internet was the "rain" itself. Speaking about the problems with regards to patents in Free Software, he argued that they had a dubious, suspect, legal basis, were really too slow/outmoded in their functionality and relevance (before one could acquire a patent, someone had or could already rework it) didnot prove profitable as they made the product too closed and insulated. Also, unlike the common view, Arun stated, that actually patenting does not protect the "small" guys and benefits the big bosses alone, who often put it as prestige label of aqquisition. He felt that the concept of IP didnot work well for goods that could be easily duplicated and whose supply was not limited. Citing the controversy of Napster, being slammed down as "illegitimate" he pointed out how newer refined ones had shaped up like Kazaa etal. No alternative legal instruments can protect intellectual output -"if all we have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail". Thus though a "solid" medai could be controlled easily, a "fluid" media could not. Arun drove an analogy with the Civil Disobedience Movement of Gandhi, forseeing "ideas as the salt of Information", and thus a need for there to be a symbolic Civil Disobedience in the electronic media , like the PGP, the Napster, Kazaa, cracking of DVD encryption. He quoted from John Gilmore-"The internet treats censorship as a fault and routes around it". He felt that India should support such a Civil Disobedience movement in the "fluid" media as is not only cut costs, but was also consistent with our traditional stand on IP, and could gather huge support.

Next, Jeebesh, spoke of OPUS (Open Platform for Unlimited Signification) an open database for structure for shared content, where the user is looked upon as a knowledge pool, a creative participant, thus a "user producer". Thus the notion of the "consumer" gets translated through an involvement in a cultural practise. But what did it mean to be a "cultural producer"?, he posed. In OPUS, the audio/visual/sound/text would constantly be seen in a "circle of production". Every material would be up for modification, circulation, without actually taking away the anatomy of the original material. Thus there would be no notion of a "diminished copy", in the digital context. What would be the relationship between these interpretations of interpretations, between these modifications? The term used was rescension, symbolic of cultural, ecclesiastical inflections. Thus one could have in OPUS, the sourse and the rescension. The need was for a database, but there were still some challenges to face. What if a third party copyrighted the material? How would one look at the administering the material without sounding autocratic? How does one work outside "the regulation" regime and yet remain defensive about the project? He ended by inviting thoughts, views, solutions around these challenges.

Nitin Sawhney, MIT-Media Lab spoke on "ThinkCycle: Co-operative Innovation in the Commons". He introduced the project, within a larger framework of his concerns and issues related to it, largely speaking on rethinking, distributed collaboration and IP, for substantial Design Innovation. He stressed upon the Universal Human Rights, in relation to IP, stating that economic growth didnot always imply developement of the people. He mentioned some texts that had inspired him to think of "universal human rights" issues. E.F Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful" and Victor Papenek's "Design for the Real World". Thus he asserted that it was unethical to keep socially valuable ideas protected. He pointed out the three important trends in the 1990's
* distributed computing/ online communities
* global dialouge on digital divide
* bold new movements such as IP in the Public Domain.
He then discussed and ushered us through the website of Think Cycle, explaining its architechture, design, functionality. It is a space where topics for discussion and developement are thrown open to collaboratively work on. The site has a "think space" marked out for shared, open discussions around issues thrown open, and also has an online digital library for reference and research. A lot of projects are currently online, evolving strategies and debates of growing relevance. The aim of the collaborative community is to make all their works fall into Open Registry section as opposed to closed, proprietorial spheres.

Last speaker of the day was Sunil Abraham, from Mahiti, Bangalore, who made a quick demo of the Open Registry forum explaining the processes through which it works.

Lastly, Sarai and ALF, co-ordinators of the workshop thanked all the participants and presenters for a stimulating two days of discourse and debates.The students met with the co-ordinators after the presentations to discuss on future workplans around the IP related issues.'

Report: Ruchika Negi
Photographs: Parvati Sharma

Readings on IPL

http://www.creativecommons.org/concepts/

The fundamental concepts that inspire Creative Commons:
the public domain, the commons, open content, and intellectual property conservancies.

Creativity and innovation rely on a rich heritage of prior intellectual endeavor. We stand on the shoulders of giants by revisiting, reusing, and transforming the ideas and works of our peers and predecessors. Digital communications promise a new explosion of this kind of collaborative creative activity. But, at the same time, expanding intellectual property protection leaves fewer and fewer creative works in the "public domain"--the body of creative material unfettered by law and, to quote Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, "free as the air to common use."

Until 1976, creative works were not protected by U.S. copyright law unless their authors took the trouble to publish a copyright notice along with them. Works not affixed with a notice passed into the public domain. Following legislative changes in 1976 and 1988, creative works are now automatically copyrighted. We believe that many people would not choose this "copyright by default" if they had an easy mechanism for turning their work over to the public or exercising some but not all of their legal rights. It is Creative Commons' goal to help create such a mechanism.

Background on and examples of the value of the public domain "Cultivating the Public Domain," Creative Commons White Paper. Conference on the Public Domain, Duke Law School (collected conference papers)."The Public Domain in Copyright Law," Edward Samuels, 41 Journal of the Copyright Society 137 (1993). "The Public Domain in Genomics," Rebecca A. Eisenberg (2000).
"Making the Public Domain Public," Robert A. Baron (revised Apr. 28, 2000). Project Gutenberg, Eldritch Press

Organizations that support the public domain Center for the Public Domain Public Knowledge
Union for the Public Domain
UNESCO, Communication and Information in the Knowledge Society

The public domain in the news
"Other People's Property," Sarah Lai Stirland, Village Voice (Apr. 2002). Related to the public domain is the more general idea of "the commons" -- resources that are not divided into individual bits of property but rather are jointly held so that anyone may use them without special permission. Think of public streets, parks, waterways, outer space, and creative works in the public domain -- all of these things are, in a way, part of the commons.

The "tragedy of the commons" is the familiar notion that widespread public use of a commons leads to its inevitable depletion. But some resources, once created, cannot be depleted. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine receives light without darkening me." An idea is not diminished when more people use it. Creative Commons aspires to cultivate a commons in which people can feel free to reuse not only ideas, but also words, images, and music without asking permission -- because permission has already been granted to everyone.

Background on the value of the commons
"Public Assets, Private Profits," David Bollier (2001).
"Reclaiming the Commons," Yes! Magazine (Summer 2001).
"Reclaiming a Commons," Lawrence Lessig (May 1999).

The free software and open source software communities have inspired what is sometimes called "open content." Some copyright holders have made books, music, and other creative works available under licenses that give anyone permission to copy and make other uses of the works without specific permission or a royalty payment. Creative Commons hopes to build on the work of these pioneers by creating a menu of license provisions that people can combine to make their work available for copying and creative reuses.

Background
"Open content," Wikipedia Encyclopedia.
"Why Open Content Matters," Bryan Pfaffenberger, Linux Journal (Apr. 11,
2001).
"Open Content," Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Licenses
Design Science License
EFF Open Audio License
Free Art License
Free Music Public License
Open Content License
Open Music License
Open Publication License
Public Library of Science Open Access License
GNU Free Documentation License

As we help people make their work available with public domain dedications and generous licenses, we will also build an "intellectual property conservancy." Like a land trust or nature preserve, the conservancy will serve to protect works of special public value from exclusionary private ownership and from obsolescence due to neglect or technological change. We will encourage people to donate their works to Creative Commons to be held in public trust; in some cases, we may purchase important works to help guarantee both their integrity and widespread availability. Our ultimate goal is to develop a rich repository of high-quality works in a variety of media, and to promote an ethos of sharing, public education, and creative interactivity.

Background on intellectual property conservancies
"Public Access to Digital Material," Brewster Kahle, Rick Prelinger, and Mary E. Jackson (Mar. 5, 2001).
"Intellectual Property Conservancies," David Bearman, D-Lib Magazine (Dec. 2000).
"May the Source Be With You," Lawrence Lessig, Wired (Sept. 12, 2001).
The Software Conservancy
The Knowledge Conservancy