there was some movement towards the making of govt funded work, or hopefully just govt work, copyright-free. there were many proposals before the govt when the last amendment to the copyright act came up for revision. However such proposals were rejected and they didnt go through.
It is worth taking a look at the copyright act to see how govt works/govt funded works are treated, and you'll find that fairly interesting. copyright in govt works: 60 years section 52 of copyright act- "certain acts *not* to be infringement of copyright" (emphasis added): (q*) the reproduction or publication of-* (i) any matter which has been published in any Official Gazette *except* an Act of a Legislature; (ii) any Act of a Legislature *subject to the condition* that such Act is reproduced or published together with any commentary thereon or any other original matter; (iii) the report of any committee, commission, council, board or other like body appointed by the Government if such report has been laid on the Table of the Legislature, * unless* the reproduction or publication of such report is prohibited by the Government; (iv) any judgement or order of a court, tribunal or other judicial authority, unless the reproduction or publication of such judgment or order is prohibited by the court, the tribunal or other judicial authority, as the case may be; *(r) the production or publication of a translation in any Indian language of an Act of a Legislature and* *of any rules or orders made thereunder-* (i) if no translation of such Act or rules or orders in that language has previously been produced or published by the Government; or (ii) where a translation of such Act or rules or orders in that language has been produced or published by the Government, if the translation is not available for sale to the public: Provided that such translation contains a statement at a prominent place to the effect that the translation has not been authorised or accepted as authentic by the Government; If you carefully go through the law excerpted above, and pay particular attention to the exceptions there, you'll come to a set of what can only be called 'interesting' conclusions... :-) for instance if i were to take a copy of a govt act and put it up on a website of mine, without any value added from my side, that's technically a violation of copyright. A On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 9:32 AM, L. Shyamal <[email protected]> wrote: > I support Karthik's point and think there is a long overdue case to call > for all publicly funded work (incl. government works, publications, data > etc.) to be explicitly released into the public domain (as defined here > http://law.yourdictionary.com/articles/what-is-public-domain.html ) or > failing that freely licensed (given that the Copyright laws and other laws > are too inertia bound). > > If there is to be a single point agenda for any knowledge related > organization, it would certainly be to seek change in the clause related to > work of government so as to be along the lines of 17 USC 105 - a useful > discussion on it can be found at > http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/105 > > best wishes > Shyamal > > http://muscicapa.blogspot.com > > > > Is data behind non-monetary paywalls really > open?<http://groups.google.com/group/datameet/t/e0c7882e428fcc6a> >> >> Karthik Shashidhar <[email protected]> Feb 18 10:30AM >> +0530 >> >> >> What do you think of websites or organizations that ask you to fill >> up an >> elaborate form or write an elaborate research proposal before they >> share >> their data with you? Do you think such data is really "open"? >> >> I find monetary paywalls more egalitarian than such artificial >> paywalls >> because in the former case the data is available to anyone who pays. >> In >> case of artificial paywalls though (I will call them paywalls since >> you >> effectively pay by massaging the ego of the person who controls the >> data) >> there is no guarantee that you will get the data and people >> controlling it >> can reject your requests for arbitrary reasons. >> >> Don't you think there is a case to campaign for data behind such >> artificial >> paywalls to be put in the public domain and made really "free"? At >> least we >> should campaign for all data produced as part of publicly funded >> research >> to be made publicly available in an easily downloadable and usable >> format. >> >> Regards >> Karthik >> >> >> >> >> > -- > For more details about this list > http://datameet.org/discussions/ > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "datameet" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- For more details about this list http://datameet.org/discussions/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "datameet" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
