SpicyIP and Authorship: Fostering Diversity (and Guest Posts)

/ By / Uncategorized

For the last couple of months, I’ve been at the receiving end of several emails and phone calls that ask: did you really say that on your blog. How could you? My short terse response is: But it wasn’t me! Please read the post again and the name of the author carefully. Pat comes the reply: but isn’t this your blog? Well, I own the domain and the website and will naturally take the fall for defamatory statements and the […]

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An Open Letter to Kapil Sibal on Copyright and Free Speech

/ By / Copyright

Dear Mr. Sibal, It is unfortunate that in rejecting the motion to annul the Intermediary Guidelines, for reasons I can only assume relate to narrow political gains, you also shot down an opportunity to plug the copyright system and its impact on individual liberties. When you stated in Parliament that Rule 3(2) prescribes due diligence requirements for internet companies based on powers under Section 66A of the IT Act, you were either misinformed or lying. The official notification, available on

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Victory for Akhtar – Rajya Sabha unanimously passes historic amendments to Copyright Act, 1957

/ By / Copyright

The Rajya Sabha, yesterday, sat overtime to debate and vote on the historic Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010. The Bill was passed unanimously by all members of the Rajya Sabha with no opposition from any quarters. The Bill has been in the works for a few years now and was introduced in Parliament in the year 2010. This amendment Bill introduced some of the most sweeping changes in Indian copyright law, especially for the music industry. Other major amendments pertained to

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Closer to a censored society

/ By / Copyright

Pic from here Being currently based out of India, I hadn’t noticed it myself, but a lot of my friends were complaining about several file-sharing sites and video sites being blocked or censored. And it appears that even Anonymous’ attention has been drawn to these incidences. More on that shortly.  I’ve looked into what other sources are saying and it appears that at least a portion of the ‘censorship’ seems to be due to an interim injunction order issued by

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Delhi High Court refuses Interim Injunction for Trademark that is in Public Domain: Ihhr Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. v. Bestech India Pvt. Ltd.

/ By / Trademark

Name of the case: Ihhr Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. v. Bestech India Pvt. Ltd. Court: Delhi High Court (FAO(OS) 352/2011) Date of decision: 09.05.2012. Appellant: Ihhr Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. (represented by Mr. Rajeev Virmani, Senior Advocate instructed by Mr. Shantanu Sood, Advocate) Respondent: Bestech India Pvt. Ltd. (Represented by: Mr. Arun Bharadwaj, Senior Advocate instructed by Mr. Manish Sharma and Ms. Shivanshi Gupta, Advocates) Judges: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Pradeep Nandrajog, Hon’ble Mr. Justice Siddharth Mridul. Facts: The Appellant is in the

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RTI review petition "disposed off"

/ By / Uncategorized

The IPO, through Dr Kardam, has formally disposed off the review petition I had filed in connection with an appeal filed against an order of the GI Registry under the Right to Information Act (RTI), 2005. I received the response earlier today. Those of you who have been following the blog over the past few weeks will recognise reference to a thread on the blog about this matter, which Prashant was kind enough to post on my behalf (here, here

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Live News: Rajya Sabha begins to debate Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010

/ By / Uncategorized

The Rajya Sabha has just started to debate the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010. Apparently the sitting of the House has been extended today by one hour till 7:30. Javed Akhtar initiated the debate with a passionate appeal to pass the Bill. Do turn on Rajya Sabha TV if you are interested in catching the debate right now. You can also view the debate on the RS website. We’ll link up to the debates once they are put up on the

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SpicyIP Tidbit: Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010 listed once again for debate and voting

/ By / Copyright

Image from here The Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010 is listed for business once again today before the Rajya Sabha. It was not taken up yesterday despite there being time for it to be debated. I don’t think the Bill is going to make it through the Rajya Sabha even today because the very, very controversial Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules, 2011 are sought to be annulled by P. Rajeev, a MP from Kerala. The rules have been the sources of

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IIT-Bombay earns Rs. 72,02,355 through its agreement with Intellectual Ventures

/ By / Patent

Around three years ago, the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, which is one of India’s leading universities, had entered into a ‘licence agreement’ with Intellectual Ventures (IV), an ‘invention capital’ company head-quartered in Washington D.C., for commercialization of its patents. The partnership between IV and IIT-B received a lot of publicity in India and even we had written about the agreement over here. Part of the publicity was rather negative since IV is often perceived to be a ‘patent troll’,

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SpicyIP Tidbit: National Biodiversity Authority puts out call for lawyers

/ By / Biological Diversity

The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has invited applications for two legal positions. The advertisements for both posts can be accessed over here on the website of the NBA.  The first post is that of a general legal advisor and the job description is as follows:  The NBA proposes to engage the services of a Lawyer on a monthly payment of fees (on retainer basis) to assist them in policy making and advice on legal aspects related to the implementation of

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