---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kohl Gill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Jul 20, 2006 1:54 PM Subject: Re: [greenyouth] RTI and copyright To: Anivar Aravind <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> kohl > 1-3) I would default to using the images in the least-intrusive way. > kohl > To me, that would mean option (c), with the second meaning. In > kohl > principle, the government should post the copyright restrictions on the > kohl > same page, so as to remove confusion. But out of deference to innocent > kohl > content producers that may have licensed such material to the > kohl > government, I would follow this procedure. > > What I suggest is As far as Govt is an Institution working with public money > all > information it produces must be on public domain. I would only say that it's debatable. The government "produces" information in many different ways. If it is licensing it from a private body, then, clearly, it doesn't automatically enter the public domain. Otherwise the gov't would be very restricted in the types of contracts it could enter with content producers, and that might unnecessarily burdent the exchequer. As I said, if there are copyright restrictions, the gov't body should publish those on the website, but failing that, I would try to infringe as little as possible. The fact is that the Indian gov't isn't as clued-in about these issues as we would like, at this point. But, in any case, I don't think you would run afoul of the law in any major way, as long as the approach you take is reasonable. > Kohl > 4) I would assume they would not allow commercial use directly (i.e., > Kohl > sale of the picture, or use of the picture to make t-shirts for sale) > Kohl > but would allow derivative use (see a picture of a field, make a > Kohl > judgment on what to plant in that field, benefit monetarily). In any > Kohl > case, these 4 questions can be answered by using the RTI itself. I > Kohl > would apply to the NIC, immediately, were I you. > > It is only a personal opinion right? The policies that deal with > public information > must have a policy about usage that supports public interests. Yes, personal opinion. But, following that opinion, I would expect any court of law to back me up. Re: policies: Exactly. These are questions that I would pose directly to the NIC, under the RTI act. All you need is 10 Rs. and a citizen to sign it (I'm not one). > Here question is on the term Accessible way. > The question actually points more at Data handling standards. Does > Indian Govt have any standard for handling digital data? Most of the > information is available under M$ word format. > > Does govt believe that all people are rich enough to buy M$ office . > Or belive that people will use the pirated copies? Right to > information question must also address the question of publically > owned data standards. > > If you need more information on open standards read the primer > Published by UNDP-APDIP's IOSN > http://www.iosn.net/open-standards/foss-open-standards-primer/ Again, these are great questions for the National Informatics Center. If there is a coordinated policy (which I doubt), then they would know about it. Personally, I doubt that every MSWord user in the Indian Gov't is using a proper license from MS. I have also personally seen government officials (Delhi, MCD) running OpenOffice on their PCs. > But is any of these data are publically available? Frankly speaking > india is a country without having a publically available Geographic > boundaries as GPS points. These data with ISRO is not only a privilage > of people working on those institutes. At the same time Govt trys to > prevent Google earth in the name of terrorism when any such data > become available to public. As of the current censorship over > blogosphere The point, to me, is to find these things out. It is accessible, in principle, as long as it doesn't violate Section 8 or the rest of the RTI Act, 2005. Remember also Section 10, which says that even if, for example, a sat-image contains critical defense information, the portions of the image that *don't* contain that info must still be released. The key issue here is that the law, as written, is pretty damn good. It's the best transparency law, by most standards, in the world. It's a damn sight better than the one my country (US) uses. Indians just need to follow the law, ask for the information, and, when denied, appeal the hell out of it. Wrt terrorism/state security, the burden of proof is on the bureaucrat, not you. Above all, don't get disheartened or cynical. Opening such a tightly-closed government will take time. Demanding everything, now, is what we should do; expecting everything to get it is another issue. Does that suffice? Kohl --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala run by Global Alternate Information Applications (GAIA) To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
