That is very interesting. Perhaps the WMF has some mechanism in place to go to court? On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 11:48 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < rsrikanth05(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Vickram Fool On The Hill <http://communicall.wordpress.com>

On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 12:16 PM, Gautam John &lt;gautam(a)prathambooks.org&gt;wrote;wrote: vvcrishna(a)radiophony.com&gt; wrote: some more awareness over creative commons license among government agencies. -- j.mp/ArunGanesh <http://j.mp/ArunGanesh>

On 29 September 2011 14:21, Anirudh Bhati &lt;anirudhsbh(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Well, and to ease the use of it while clearly marking it as such and making interoperability easier. Me thinks a letter explaining the license, how they can use *any* content from WMF properties and the attribution would help. And that it is in Tamil too - the content, that is. Thank you. Best, Gautam ________ http://blog.prathambooks.org/p/social-media.html

PB is what?! CG? Thank you. Best, Gautam ________ http://blog.prathambooks.org/p/social-media.html On 29 September 2011 15:48, Srikanth Ramakrishnan &lt;rsrikanth05(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On 29 September 2011 15:56, Pradeep Mohandas &lt;pradeep.mohandas(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Oh! Pratham Books is most certainly not a Central Government body! Thank you. Best, Gautam ________ http://blog.prathambooks.org/p/social-media.html

I am sorry that my simple query did not include my reasoning. The purpose of going to court is not to enforce rights per se for a particular photograph, but to send a signal to the government that a right enjoyed by all cannot be arbitrarily abstracted by the government, and that it amounts to intellectual theft, aside from a signal failure of the government to protect the Constitution, which assigns this right. In fact, we (persons who have a point of view about IPR that is somewhat at odds with the reasoning that has gone behind the enactment of amendments and/or rules to the Copyright Act in accordance with certain provisions under TRIPS etc, and of course we believe that this category should include all persons in favour of Wikipedia) actually want the opposite, we want the government to assign public rights by default over all intellectual content created at public cost, save only that (and it should be specifically described with a logical, transparent and clear methodology and process, not some peon lagaaoing a rubber stamp marked 'Secret' with gay abandon, only because the officer concerned is too lazy or uneducated to do her homework) content that pertains clearly and unequivocally to national security for which provision has been made in the Constitution, and of course, information pertaining to the personal privacy rights of individuals, which by definition cannot be acquired by the government in the first place (although it may in the interest of good governance, document or tabulate such information for specifically defines purposes, and for such purposes only). Wow! That's some sentence - it is an example of how legal writing sometime needs to be nitpickingly precise, even at the cost of obvious clarity. I am not insisting that WMF or the Chapter take the lead in this matter - there are plenty of NGOs and brave individuals out there fighting for the preservation of our fundamental rights. But in this case, it is precisely WMF (or if you please, the Chapter, although I don't really see the connection, unless the Chapter charter includes a specific assignment of rights from the Foundation for such purposes) that is the aggrieved party, having posted information (or, to be legally specific, enabled the posting) in the public domain for the common weal, that has been sought to be stolen arbitrarily and without any form of legal sanction. My query was only to establish whether Wikimedia in general is playing an active role in the courts in such matters, in India as well as abroad. On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 7:04 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < rsrikanth05(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Vickram Fool On The Hill <http://communicall.wordpress.com>

On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:01 AM, Gautam John &lt;gautam(a)prathambooks.org&gt;wrote;wrote: In this particular case, doubtless Arun Ganesh is specifically aggrieved, since it was his picture the Government has acquired al la Singur (but without the comforting legislative sanction such actions normally need), but WMF's ability to display content in the public domain would be rather severely constrained if government functionaries made a habit of this sort of thing. As a matter of fact, we have been discussing on separate threads just how much that ability is constrained by new definitions in India extending copyright in text and picture for extended periods that even the pharmaceutical sector does not enjoy for formulations that have been brought into the market only after the expenditure of several millions of dollars (which they ameliorate by 'conducting' clinical tests in India winkety wink but that's another tale for another thread) in developmental costs. Many thanks Gautam. I agree it is probably a little early for the Chapter, an organisation that is in effect just getting off the ground, but perhaps it can be taken on board. -- Vickram Fool On The Hill <http://communicall.wordpress.com>