The Equations of Bots and the Law, Part I : Crimes and Torts

Posted on by Kartik Chawla

(Image Source: http://sites.psu.edu/periodicpostulations/2012/09/12/little-lost-robot/)

One of the most interesting news items to come through the interwebs recently was the ‘seizure’ of a certain ‘art experiment’ in Switzerland. The bot, sadly unimaginatively named Random Darknet Shopper, lived up to its name by buying items randomly from Darknet marketplaces (with Bitcoins, interestingly) and shipping them to a gallery in Switzerland. The bot came under the scanner of the police after it bought some ecstacy pills and a counterfeit passport.

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The Curious Case of Academic Journals

Posted on by Jitesh Anand

One of the prominent ways of ‘decorating’ our Curriculum Vitae (CV) is lacing it up with published research papers or articles in renowned academic journals. Not just students, but also teachers, scientists and academicians prefer submitting their works to noteworthy journals of their respective academic disciplines. In cases of public-funded research, the journals get the research almost free of cost, but they charge exorbitant amounts in giving access to these academic articles. Elsevier, the biggest academic journal publisher, made a profit of $1.2 billion on revenues of £2.1 billion in 2011. Yes, it does make Murdoch look like a socialist! In this blog post, I will discuss two possible solutions to this significant problem, first, getting rid of the system of journals altogether and secondly, open access journals along with their pros and cons.

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Spotify v. "Music"?

Posted on by Veera Mahuli

Controversy surrounded popular online music-streaming service Spotify after artist Taylor Swift pulled her entire catalog from it, and other prominent artists like Thom Yorke of Radiohead criticized it. The artists’ main issue with the service seems to be the fact that its revenue model is not artist-friendly, and threatens the music industry.

Currently, Spotify is a major player in the internet radio industry, controlling 6 percent of internet music streaming market, with discrimination in services to free and paid subscribers. The company is estimated to gross $1.2 billion from its 10 million paying subscribers alone, and has been recently valued at $8.3 billion.

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[SpicyIP Cross-post] The Fault in our Intermediary Liability Laws

Posted on by Kartik Chawla

This post was first published on SpicyIP here.

Over the course of 2014, we have seen a multitude of blocking orders pass through the hallowed walls of our courts. Some of the most curious things about these orders are that they were, mostly, ex-parte, John Doe orders, aimed at websites rather than specific content, and the cause of actions was that infringement was ‘likely’ to occur. I’m going to be dealing with the last two of the issues in detail, while the first issue has already been dealt with by Prof. Shamnad Basheer here.

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[SpicyIP Cross-post] Online Piracy – The Way Forward?

Posted on by Kartik Chawla

This post was first published on SpicyIP here. Image Source: https://flic.kr/p/BXwqH.

One of the greatest issues that the Old Guard of the media production realm has had with the Internet is the copyright infringement that it facilitates. As such, there have been multiple attempts at restricting the internet to protect copyright in various ways, the most notable international examples of which are the DMCA, SOPA and PIPA, MPAA’s structured siege against Google, the essentially pointless litigation against Pirate Bay, and the story of Aaron Swartz. The Indian examples include litigation on Section 81 of the Information Technology Act, and thespate of troubling orders that have been passed in the last year alone.

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Net Neutrality Violations in India: On BluWiFi and OTT Services

Posted on by Kartik Chawla

I have written some posts about Net Neutrality before, here and here (the second is the 101). And recently, the now-aborted Airtel VoIP plans has kick-started serious discussions on the topic by TRAI, prompting the regulatory agency to issue a statement saying it will be releasing a consultation paper on the issue soon.

But it would seem that Airtel is not the only ISP that openly violates Net Neutrality in India. Interestingly, this Reddit thread brings to our attention the service terms of an Andhra Pradesh ISP BluWiFi’s Ultraband service. The relevant part here is their section on Peer-to-Peer connections, reproduced below:

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