"If the latter, then redistribution is not a problem. "


I think it has been clearly pointed out that the gazette contents are public
notices, for which the government can hardly argue for, or get away with,
restricting its free distribution. It is therefore axiomatic that the contents
should be available freely online. From there, citizens can take whatever they
want at whatever cost they are locally willing to spend: ie if they own their
own printers, it is the cost of the printing plus some tiny amount for
maintenance of the computer etc; else, it is the service fee paid to the local
agency.

Equally, other webmasters should be allowed to make the contents available
within their own online aggregations or commentaries (as long as they don't
simply make a copy of the gazette blindly, if we assume it is arguably
copyrightable, and citizens are free to merely view it whenever they need
without printing it unless necessary, and such webmasters are free to charge for
such analyses and commentaries, if they think it serves a market need, but
obviously not for the notifications themselves).

In such a scenario, the government is also free to charge for access to its own
gazette website, if that is what it is legally compelled to do (which I doubt is
a possibility). However, the relevant notifications must be continue to be made
freely available from individual ministry websites, as they presumably are now.

If this is not the intention, then what specific action is needed to make the
government clarify the situation?

Vickram
http://communicall.wordpress.com
http://vvcrishna.wordpress.com




________________________________
From: Raj Mathur <raju@...>
To: cyberlaw-india@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, 19 January, 2009 11:58:07
Subject: Re: [claw-in] Why e Gazette should not be free?


On Monday 19 Jan 2009, Na.Vijayashankar wrote:
> e-gazette is published by the Government itself.
>
> The question of license therefore does not arise.

Why not? Any document has a licence associated with it, or it is in the
public domain. If the latter, then redistribution is not a problem.
If the former, then the terms of the licence would indicate whether the
document can be redistributed or not.

> We are discussing contents in http://egazette. nic.in/
>
> ITA 2000 had already enabled the issue of gazettes in electronic
> form.
>
> The website however does not represent the powers under Section 8 of
> ITA 2000 but is only publication of e-copies of paper based gazette
> notifications.

I'm referring to the licence of the paper copies, since the same licence
will apply to the soft copies. Would GoI prevent, e.g. photocopying of
the paper copies and redistribution? Or is that encouraged? If it is
forbidden, can they be sure the paper gazettes don't get photocopied
and redistributed in government offices all over the country? Will
they prosecute their own employees if they copy and share the gazette?

Regards,

-- Raju
--
Raj Mathur raju@kandalaya. org http://kandalaya. org/
GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F
PsyTrance & Chill: http://schizoid. in/ || It is the mind that moves





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