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Naavi.org has been highlighting the ill effects of some of the recent developments in the area of Intellectual Property Rights as applicable to the Cyber medium.
Basically, it is found that the problems arise due to
a) Provisions that were meant for the physical world and are inappropriate to the Cyber world being applied to the Cyber World by automatic extension. This creates confusion and discontent in he society.
b) The holders of IPR become over aggressive in their pursuit of protecting their Intellectual Property rights to the extent that the basic needs of the society are pushed to the background. This affects the normal growth of the society.
These views have been expressed by us right from Copyright related cases such as that of Radiant Software or Napster, Trademark cases such as that of marutionline.com or Patent related cases such as Amazon.
It must be clarified that this is not an attempt to decry the need to protect the IPR of creative individuals and Companies. In fact, Naavi himself is proud of getting some Patents on web utilities.
However, one should remember that the concept of IPR was to protect a Creator or an Innovator so as to provide incentives for more such people to prosper so that the society could benefit in the end.
If IPR was meant only to create monopolies to individuals or commercial establishments to exploit the society, then it would not be a protection to which any society or Government can be supportive off.
If such exploitation is done by the intermediaries and even the original creator is not getting the benefit, it means that the benefits are neither available to the innovator or to the society. In such a case it is doubly anti public and the Governments have to move in proactively to preserve the benefits to the society.
In recent days, academicians in educational institutions have raised an alarm on the misuse of Copyright by publishers of Scientific journals.
The essence of the problem highlighted by them is that as members of the academia, they are required to publish their works in reputed journals. The idea behind this proposal was to ensure that knowledge is shared and is also put to test amongst peers. Many universities have therefore mandated that a certain minimum number of publications are essential for promotions of their teaching staff.
Now when these men of eminence approach publishers of reputed journalists, the publishers take the "Copyright" on the material and become the owners of this public knowledge. Subsequently, the material becomes the commercial possession of the publisher.
On the 8th of this month, Professor John Willinsky of the University of British Columbia was in Chennai and addressed a group of technologists and librarians. During the meeting, he articulated how with a growing monopoly in the Scientific Journal publishing industry, the University Professors have unwittingly signed off their Copyrights in favour of the publishers to the detriment of the society.
It was pointed out by him and some of the participants that with the advent of Internet the expectation that distribution of knowledge would be free and wide spread has been effectively negated by the predatory policies of the journal publishers. Statistics were provided to prove that the "Cost of access" to scientific information has actually gone up after the advent of the Internet journals using "pay per view" strategy.
The Professor and the librarians also pointed out that the number of scientific journals in print have actually gone down in recent years and more than 30 % of the Electronic publications are with a single publisher creating a monopoly which is more threatening than the monopoly of many software vendors.
In order to find a solution to the problem, Professor Willinsky presented a "Journal Publishing Application" that would be made available "Free of Cost" to Universities and Libraries so that "Electronic Journals" providing "Free Access To Research Information" can be built.
He urged the Indian community to make use of this facility.
Naavi urges the academic community to appreciate the concerns expressed by Professor Willinsky and take steps to ensure that their Intellectual Property is not misused by publishers in the same way the US Music industry has been exploiting the IPR of the musicians.
In order to start some initiative in this regard, Naavi has already suggested that the Indian Government has to take steps to create a "Indian National Intellectual Property Authority" (INIPPA) with the objective of preventing misuse of the IPR of Indian intellectuals and Entrepreneurs. The idea is not to create more regulations for the Indian public but to create a protective umbrella for them.
This suggestion becomes relevant since some vested interests in Business are pushing for legislation in India on the lines of DMCA. If the public does not raise their voice when it is effective, they will be regretting their decision later.
Pending the formation of such an authority, I now suggest the academicians at least in Chennai to start a forum for "Public Access of Knowledge" and start a dialogue with the Government on how legislatory protection can be worked out to prevent misuse of Copyright in the academic circles.
I request interested persons to contact Naavi so that the project can move forward.
Naavi
February 12, 2003
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