On Tuesday 14 December 2010 01:42 PM, Sanjeev Gupta wrote:
> I see no reason why they should be given "corresponding" duties.  Sure, give
> them duties, if the duties are desirable.  Give them rights, if the rights
> are desirable.  But why link the two?

Because they can add a layer of unaccountable protection on top of what
"ordinary" copyright law provides them, without the copyright law
providing the requisite balance.

> Crudely, the grant of a Right to Information Act did not have a
> corresponding duty placed on requesters to ask only meaningful questions.

Only meaningful (syntactically or semantically) questions can be
understood and thus answered.
How is this even an appropriate analogy?  The RTI Act places a duty on
applicants to pay the requisite fee, for instance.

> A Right with Duties is not a "Right", it is a contract.

1. All juristic rights (claims, liberties, powers, and immunities) have
corresponding correlatives (duties, no-claim, liability, disability).
This is about rights being granted in an unfair manner, since it
violates the balance provided by copyright law, and hence certain
counter-rights being granted to users.
2. A contract is an enforceable agreement.  An agreement is a meeting of
minds as to reciprocal legal rights and duties.

> True.  Why should the "FTII prof" have a right?  What about the "non-FTII
> prof"?  What about the "non-FTII-non-prof"?

The FTII professor is an example of a person who can legitimately claim
to fall under certain exceptions under the Copyright Act (s.52(1)(i), as
proposed to be amended), but who can't exercise her rights under that
exception.

> I agree that she cannot read Adobe DRM, without assistive technologies.  But
> why burden the publisher?  Where do we stop?  I cannot read french, should
> french publishers have a "corresponding duty" to read out DRM books to me in
> english?

Because the TPM-placer is prohibiting legitimate (as per the Copyright
Act) use.  An more appropriate analogy is that same French publisher
prohibiting me from translating the book into English for my own
personal use.  Copyright law requires him to allow me to do that
(s.52(1)(a)).  Copyright law does not require him to translate a book
for me.

>> There is no question of s.65A(2) freeing up deCSS, since it has thus far
>> not been unlawful.
> I would rather say, it has not been tested in an Indian court (please
> correct me if there is case law in India).

You are generally free to do that which the law does not prohibit.  Case
law establishes that principle.  The law does not prohibit you from
circumventing TPM.  QED.

-- 
Pranesh Prakash
Programme Manager
Centre for Internet and Society
W: http://cis-india.org | T: +91 80 40926283

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