India makes good on vow to sabotage ACTA | Hacker News Reader

India makes good on vow to sabotage ACTA

arstechnica.com

124 pointsCoryOndrejka23 comments

Sabotage entails (for me, at least) some furtiveness and it seems to me that they are very clear about their motives and desires. And they are completely within their right.

Fair point. I am thrilled by India's actions and didn't mean to imply they weren't acting exactly as they said they would.

Indeed, global organisations like the WTO will have to get used to countries like India and Brazil catering to their own interests as bluntly as the European and North American countries.

Correction: they are completely within everybody else's right (except RIAA and al).

Surprisingly, there is very little discussion happening on this topic on Indian tech forums like pluggd.in or medianama.com.

Overall, the Indian government's main concern is about the impact on the generic pharmaceuticals industry. I hope officials high up are also considering the digital media angle.

Frankly, India's got a 40% poverty rate. They care about the basic needs of their people first.

If they do care about digital media, it's very, very, very low on the list of priorities.

I find that a wee bit patronizing. You'd be surprised how rapidly the economy and priorities are changing in India. While basic needs are important, that's not the only thing we care about. Individual rights, technology, infrastructure, you name it, India is changing in every facet of political and social spectrum. This is very much in tune with the current level of policy awareness/activism in India.

'Individual rights' in India? I would be pleased if you can point me to something (an event, a case won, etc.,) that highlights the fact that there's hope that eventually India would move towards respecting individual rights.

Why don't you show me a counter example of it. See the Sanjay Dutt case. See Salman Khan case, one of country's top 3 stars prisoned for animal rights. Every now and then in newspapers you can read top officials getting penalized for misusing their powers.

I love Indian judicial system, it is terrifically unparalleled.

So is our democracy and individual rights. We had first woman prime minister 25 years back. Just a few years back, our Prime Minister was Sikh and President was Muslim - Both minorities. Tell me when any nation pulls that off.

What makes you think it is not respected now? Are you an Indian. I think my individual rights are fairly well protected (except if i'm in lawless state like Bihar)

I am an Indian and I can point you to a number of incidents involving banning of books, movies and jailing of artists. People jailed for posting anti Sonia Gandhi messages on Orkut[1], banning of the comic Savita Bhabhi[2], seizing of Ask Me servers pre trial[3] are recent relevant examples off the top of my head.

[1] http://www.merinews.com/article/man-jailed-for-posting-obsce...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savita_Bhabhi#Ban_and_criticism...

[3] http://news.oneindia.in/2010/01/30/data-theft-hc-asks-askme-...

Apart from [3] which I don't have much idea of, the other two instances, the state acted within the framework of the law. Granted that, the orkut case the state cracked down disproportionately. But If i want to criticize sonia gandhi on a blog, I can as long as I keep the language civil. That's what I meant by my comment that my freedoms are fairly well protected.

We do have some very archaic laws and I woud like less censorship on the matters of religion and pornography but even within the current framework of laws a great deal can be done

yes, a former head of state police has been brought to book for molesting a girl who committed suicide when the incident took place. Problem is that it takes so much time for verdicts that its almost justice denied. But there is some effort being there. For instance the 'mission undertrial' that the law minister launched this Feb. Almost 1 lakh accused of petty crimes were just languishing in jails without a hearing, all of them have been released.

Problem here is that we tend to take two steps forward and one step back. I hope that changes.

There are too many things to list, but one that I'm quite proud of is how the courts have legalized homosexuality recently. Granted it's way overdue, but you can see that it was widely appreciated, except for Christian and Muslim institutions, which is to be expected anyway. Sure, you might not have the same level of governance that you see in a first world country. But it's changing, and ever so fast. You only have to be in India and watch the news to observe it.

India has nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers and a space programme. Just a little perspective there. To all intents and purposes it's a wealthy, modern, powerful country, not a third-world backwater. Regardless of your stance on intellectual property, there's no justification for India behaving any differently than the US or an EU country.

Sorry to disappoint you, but India IS a developing third-world country (though the term "third-world" is somehow old and maybe doesn't reflect the current political situtation any more).

As a matter of fact, the digital economy play a huge role in the 60% abot poverty rate. So it should matter to them.

You're not talking about digital media in that case. It's the rest of the "digital economy" that matters to them, specifically the telecommunications part.

Care to elaborate?

This is exactly why I would like to see some new voices on the Indian tech scene. We have got some of the most absurd IT laws and processes of any country. Privacy might as well be absent from the tech debate here. Our record on freedom of speech is abysmal. I so wish there was at least someone influential in India voicing these concerns.

ACTA is not a win-win proposition for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

I've heard a few rumors that ACTA's primary purpose is not meant for piracy controls inside the respective countries like US or EU, but instead about piracy of street-vendors in third world countries. The reason for the secrecy was to keep them out so they don't complain.

The problem, of course, is that it's too generic and overarching and nobody wins except Big Copyright. When a country is worried about a treaty affecting generic drug manufacturing, IP laws have gone too far.

Thank you, India.

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