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India Passes Digital Lock Rules That Link Circumvention to Copyright Infringement

India’s two Houses of Parliament passed copyright reform legislation this month that includes digital lock provisions. The Indian approach is very similar to what dozens of groups recommended for Canada as it links circumvention to copyright infringement. The new Indian digital lock rules state:

65A. (1)  Any person who circumvents an effective technological measure applied for the purpose of protecting any of the rights conferred by this Act, with the intention of infringing such rights, shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to two years and shall also be liable to fine.

(2) Nothing in sub-section (1) shall prevent any person from,—

(a) doing anything referred to therein for a purpose not expressly prohibited by this Act:

Pranesh Prakash offers detailed analysis of the bill and the digital lock provisions.

5 Comments

  1. Anonymous says:

    How can we get this message into the heads of our politicians
    It looks like a nice day outside in Ottawa.

  2. Crockett says:

    So for every Canadian than is denied reasonable user rights, 50 Indian citizens can enjoy them.

    Sound equitable?

  3. Hollywood or Bollywood?
    Any wagers on who pushed this legislation?

  4. “effective”
    Does the word “effective” have some special legal definition? Because otherwise any digital lock that can be circumvented is, by my definition, not “effective”. This whole paragraph (and similar ones elsewhere) is thus meaningless.

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