[Wikimediaindia-l] [Press] : Financial Chronicle : "Wikipedians say Indian govt should ease copyright curbs"

[CherianTinu Abraham]

*Financial Chronicle : "Wikipedians say Indian govt should ease copyright
curbs"*

http://www.mydigitalfc.com/knowledge/wikipedians-say-indian-govt-should-ease-copyright-curbs-992

*Wikipedia the online encyclopaedia is struggling to reproduce contents,
which are freely available in government websites.*
*
*
*Wikipedians say government copyrighting its content has hampered its
publication work in the world’s largest free online encyclopaedia. Gautam
John, a Wikipedian who is former board member and secretary of Wikimedia
India chapter, said, “There is a difference between contents of websites
being publicly accessible and contents in public domain. In India, contents
of government-funded websites are publicly accessible but they are
restricted to be in public domain.”*
*
*
*Gautam added, “In US, government websites are not only in publicly
accessible but are allowed to be in public domain that is reproduced and
publicised”. He can’t understand rationale behind government copyrighting
its websites contents, though it’s a practice inherited from colonial era.”*
*
*
*Wikipedians are asking for an open license for reproducing contents of
government websites. Gautam, said, “Its the tax payers money which was used
for generating such data. Data like census, healthcare, and others are
neither sensitive nor related to national security.*
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*
*Wikipedians have also abandoned their project to update profiles of six
lakh Indian villages in Wikipedia. Wikipedia enables any person to
contribute matters of his or her interest on it. Tinu Cherian, a Bangalore
based Wikipedian and working in a MNC, had started the project, India
Villages, last year. Tinu, said, "I completed about 1200 villages of
Karnataka and 1200 villages of Kerala. But for the time being I have
stopped the wok.” *
*
*

Regards
Tinu Cherian
press at wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news

Important Note : The publisher ( Financial Chronicle ) of the above news
article owns the copyrights of the article / content. Request to kindly not
reproduce or circulate the content further. The information is only shared
only with an internal community who have been featured on this article.
 All copyrights are duly acknowledged.
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