Even before the the new Cyber Laws are understood by the
industry, and at a time when India is in the verge of passing the
Communication Convergence Act, a discussion has already emerged in other parts
of the world on whether Cyber Laws are getting counter productive.
We need to look at this point in two angles. One is that
Cyber Laws are necessary to boost the confidence of the E-Commerce
participants so that more and more use can be made of IT in business. However,
if and when the Laws start becoming overprotective of one segment over the
other, the very laws that were once found necessary becomes a stumbling block
for progress.
It is neither the fault of the law itself or the society
that some times regulation becomes the rallying point for anti social
elements.
The tendency in all laws is that as more and more deviant
behavour is observed in the society, the law is tinkered to add new clauses to
protect against the new deviant behaviour. In the process the law becomes
tighter and tighter until it becomes stiffling and eventually kills the
industry itself.
We in India have seen how SEBI has through over regulation
killed the retail stock markets and RBI through its own over regulatory
measures killed the Non Banking Finance Industry. These will be standing
examples for regulators to learn from.
At the same time non-regulation is also dangerous
particularly when the society is in a transition stage. An example of this can
also be seen in the Indian context where the "Globalization" process has been
wiping out the entire old economy in a bid to create a new economy.
The solution is to strike a proper balance between
inadequate regulation and over regualtion.
Recently, it was reported that Verisign has confirmed
a drastic fall in domain name registrations. About an year back, approximately
50,000 additional domain names were being registered all over the world at
around US 30 per year. Currently the registration rate seems to have turned
negative. The Internet economy is therefore losing over US $ 150000 every day
because of the fall in domain name registrations.
One of the main causes for this is said to be the trends in
Domain Name Dispute settlement which have discouraged speculative
registrations. While the laws might have eliminated Cyebr Squatting, it has
also destroyed creation of Cyber Wealth. In order protect the interests of a
few large corporations who forgot to register their domain names in time, the
Domain Name registration industry was deliberately killed.
This comment is made with the full understanding of there
is a need to protect consumer interests arising out of confusing domain
names. But there is a separate solution for this problem in the form of
www.verify4lookalikes.com which is better than ruling that every
conceivable TLD extensions or name variations of a registered trade mark
belongs only to the trade mark owner and no body else.
A similar over regulatory tendency has been seen in the
Copyright scenario also. Blocking file sharing technology, restricting web
broadcasts of TV programmes and Live sports events and strange E-Book
copyright claims have stiffled free expression on the Internet. The DMCA has
ensured that law is firmly on the side of the meta society industrialists who
look at Web as a threat to their monopoly.
Presently, the Digital Rights Management (DRM)
technology on which Microsoft holds a patent is sought to be made
mandatory for Computers. DRM technology can control file access (number of
views, length of views), altering, sharing, copying, printing, and saving.
These technologies may be contained within the operating system, program
software, or in the actual hardware of a device
This is expected to reduce the Computer to an Idiot Box
where the user can see only what the broadcaster will allow. And the super
broadcaster would be Microsoft which will filter all the content that the OS
will allow to be displayed on the computer screen.
If such a development goes unchecked, the entire Computer
industry is likely to suffer retardation of growth.
Already most of the software manufacturers have been
resorting to "Licensing" of software instead of "Selling" and further
restricting the license to a "Version" and forcing the user to go in for newer
and newer version of the software. This tendency deliberately shorten the life
span of software coupled with usurious pricing, has only helped in large scale
piracy of software. Any further tightening of regulation can only lead to
people putting off their computer purchase and reduce the speed of adoption.
Thus in most of the IPR related Cyber Laws, there has been
a tendency to over regulate leading to industry slow down. Law makers should
keep this in mind.
Naavi
May 01, 2002
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