Tis’ one of the most enduring paradoxes. That our right to privacy verdict became one of the most “public” ever! The sheer number of public comments that sprung up in its wake is testament to this sentiment. At last count, there appeared to be more than 300 articles and commentaries on this judgment alone; all within a span of a month or so! In fact, just a week or so back, we at IDIA did a full panel on privacy…
Here at SpicyIP, we’re a bunch of zealous IP nerds and geeks. Think of us as a Comic-con for IP, but running all through the year. One of the topics that has got us into a tizzy recently is that of content neutrality in IP. Just look at our track record this past year: We had one of the most distinguished IP Judges in India, Justice Gautam Patel, write for us on content neutrality in Copyrights. This was followed by…
In a landmark judgment delivered on August 24, 2017 a bench of 9 judges of the Supreme Court in the case of Justice K. S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India has clarified that all Indians have a fundamental right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution. I use the word ‘clarify’ because smaller benches of the Supreme Court have previously proceeded on the assumption that privacy has always been a fundamental right under the Indian Constitution. These judgments…
We are pleased to bring to you a guest post by Jaideep Reddy on the ongoing SC case on right to privacy. Jaideep is a technology lawyer at Nishith Desai Associates. The views expressed in this post are personal. We had earlier published a few snippets of an article co-authored by him on problems of delegated legislation/executive action here. The Privacy Case – Looking Past Semantics Jaideep Reddy Next week, the Supreme Court is expected to answer the question that…
At the outset, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Professor Shamnad Basheer and the rest of the SpicyIP team, for this opportunity as well as the magnanimous gesture of allowing me to be the first scholar in practice! I am humbled and grateful for this opportunity so a huge thank you once again! As Adam Burish said, “It’s not pressure, it’s excitement”. Reveries of a Publicity Right By now, most of our readers would be familiar with what…
A few months ago, I had written about a judgment of the Delhi High Court dismissing a PIL filed against the change in Whatsapp privacy policy. As I had commented at this time, the PIL was absolutely frivolous and should have been dismissed. Yet, it is now being heard by a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court – a rare event these days. How did this PIL transform from being frivolous to ending up before a Constitutional Bench of 5…
We are happy to bring to you another guest post by our Fellowship applicant Shubhi Sharma. Shubhi is a 4th year student at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab. This is her second submission for the Fellowship. Who Can Be A Celebrity: A Christopher Porco Story Shubhi Sharma In 2013 Lifetime Entertainment Services (LES) decided to broadcast a film titled “Romeo Killer: The Christopher Porco Story”. LES later found itself engaged in a legal spat of civil rights action suit with…
We are happy to bring to you a guest post on a recent order by the Madras High Court directing Google and You Tube to disclose the identity and IP address of the user who uploaded an allegedly defamatory video about Lebara Foundation. The author of this post wishes to remain anonymous. YouTube: The Bi-Polar Behemoth Anonymous Recently on Spicy IP, Rahul wrote an excellent post describing YouTube’s most recent over-zealous efforts to police content on their website. In short, YouTube’s…
A few weeks ago, two millennial babalog filed a public interest litigation (PIL) before the Delhi High Court against Whatsapp’s new privacy policy which informed users that their data would now be shared with Facebook unless users opted out. Facebook had acquired Whatsapp for $19 billion dollars two years ago and it was only a matter of time before the company began to harvest the goldmine of data with Whatsapp. Rather than dismiss the PIL in limine the Court admitted…
Inika Charles, our Spicy IP Fellowship applicant brings us this interesting tidbit on Whatspp’s new end to end encryption. This is her fourth submission for the fellowship. In wake of the Apple v. FBI controversy, WhatsApp has announced that all messages, photographs, videos, files and calls sent and received on WhatsApp software released after March 31, 2016 will be encrypted end-to-end. What this essentially entails is that, by a default setting, only the people sending or receiving the messages will…