Hi Dhaval,

Copyright protection is intended to protect "creative works" and many of the things that government produce are not supposed to involve creativity, they are supposed to be factual. The Indian Copyright Act says that certain works of government are not copyrighted (ie in the public domain):

http://copyright.gov.in/Documents/CopyrightRules1957.pdf <quote> (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; </quote>

My suggestion is that tickets issued in buses or trains, government forms etc. would most likely be outside the scope of "work" as defined by the Copyright Act. Legal tender such as currency would be obviously not come under such protection as that would amount to or support counterfeiting but I would argue that tickets and licenses that are no longer valid are not legal tender. Similarly an image of a passport with certain key elements erased would form the blank format and since these are publicly available there might be an argument to consider them not under copyright.

A secondary point I am making here is that practical value can be added only if the Wikimedia Chapter in India has a legal voice that can be heard alongside that of the Wikimedia Foundation.

I failed to understand it, as the object/work is same thing in nearly all

copyright acts. Not at all. There is considerable difference across countries particularly with reference to Freedom of Panorama and government work, and also on how the First-sale doctrine applies. http://www.usa.gov/copyright.shtml

best wishes Shyamal

On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 12:03 PM, Dhaval S. Vyas dsvyas@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Shyamal,

Can you please expand " I believe that the definition of "work" in the Indian Copyright Act would leave many items ineligible for copyright and perhaps would make sense if experts could specify them. " a bit more?

I failed to understand it, as the object/work is same thing in nearly all copyright acts.

Regards, Dhaval