Nasscom is failing in its duty
Nasscom is the national association of software companies in India. For many aspects, Government considers Nasscom as the representative of the IT industry. Also when any reforms are meant for the ICT sector, the opinion of Nasscom becomes a key input. Nasscom Chairman is often taken into confidence when important decisions that affect the Cyber Regulations in the country.
In our considered opinion, the Government of India is making a serious mistake in allowing for the amendments to ITA-2000 go through without further major debate on the final version which will be tabled in the Parliament.
Nasscom headed by Mr Kiran Karnik. Nasscom has already taken a public stand on the issue saying in a press release that “Nasscom welcomes the Amendments”
It is our request that Mr Kiran Karnik should take personal interest in making the final draft meant for approval of the parliament available for a prolonged debate in the public domain before any action is taken....More
"Learn to Unlearn", the first principle of "Cyber Jurisprudence".
An interesting legal development in USA involving a law suit in physical space over a dispute of a virtual property has attracted attention of Cyber Law specialists. A case has been filed by a Pennsylvania resident Marc Bragg against San Francisco-based Internet game company Linden Lab and its president and CEO for alleged conversion, fraud, unjust enrichment and breach of contract and for allegedly violating several California laws.
The origin of the conflict is through an online game "Second Life" run by Linden Lab. In this game the players can buy, sell, lease land and other assets through a currency created in the game called "Lindens". Lindens can also be bought in exchange of physical currency such as US Dollars.
In the Game, there was an piece of land owned by Linden Lab which was vacant (in the context of the game). This piece was put up for auction by Mr Bragg in the game's auction space which earned him lindens worth US $ 2000/-.
Linden Lab now says that the piece of land had not yet been released by the company for auction and hence Mr Bragg had no "ownership title" (i.e. virtual ownership) on the land. It says that Mr Bragg's auction is illegal and therefore has seized his land (virtual) and the balance in his account worth US $ 2000/-.
This case will throw up interesting discussions on the nature of virtual property and transactions in which virtual acquisitions are in dispute.
It is clear however that the virtual acquisitions had the requisites of a "Property" since they had a value, could be owned, transferred or otherwise dealt with. If the value of the property was entirely in the virtual currency such as "lindens', then the dispute would have been entirely in the virtual space and fit for a "Virtual Court" to decide. But in the instance case, the convertibility of lindens to dollars creates a distinct link to the physical world and hence the dispute spills over to the physical space.
Similar problems will arise in the future in several other transactions on the virtual space and we should keep ourselves mentally prepared for accepting new concepts of virtual property and laws relating to virtual property. The initial attempt is of course to extend the known physical society concepts to the virtual space while in due course we need to develop separate Cyber Jurisprudence to deal with such disputes.
For example, if the Bragg's case is to be decided in India according to physical laws, the nature of the property being "Land", the transfer should be subject to "Transfer of Property Act" and "Registration Act". Transfer of Property Act does not however recognize "virtual land" as an immovable property and therefore the transaction would not be valid under its provisions. If however, the piece of "Virtual Land" is considered a "unit of property" created out of the contractual agreement between the player and the gaming company as well as one player with another player, while it enables application of the concepts of "Contract Laws", it conflicts with the basic requirement of "Meeting of the Minds" in contracts. The reason is that in this case, the parties dealt with the "unit of property" as an "Immovable Property" and not as any thing else. If the buyer and the seller thought and acted as if thy were buying and selling a piece of land, it would be in appropriate to adjudicate on the dispute ignoring this basic thought behind the transaction and considering it as some thing else. They had the psychological satisfaction of using it as land, perhaps constructed buildings over it, rented it out and experienced all the pleasures and pains of ownership of an immovable property. In fact some characteristics of this virtual property give it an "Intellectual Property Character" since the way the property is used is a "Creation in the minds of an imaginative player".
It would therefore be neither appropriate to treat the dispute as a "Transfer of Property Dispute" or a "Contractual Property Dispute". The IPR laws such as copyright could be closest to the property but still does not meet the "Meeting of Minds" test.
It is for this reason that Naavi.org has been advocating that Cyber Laws have to be drafted "By the Netizens" and "For the Netizens" for it to have some meaning. We need a fresh thinking on most of the disputes and we should "Learn to Unlearn" our physical society concepts. This is the first principle in the development of "Cyber Jurisprudence".
Naavi
Vijayashankar
http://www.naavi.org
e-Extortions..Punishable in India under Information Technology Act
There is a raging debate in India about cyber crimes and the legislative environment. Media is full of reports that the Government of India is “Tightening the Laws” to protect the industry against Cyber Crimes such as data theft which are frequently reported in the country. These reports refer to the proposed amendments to ITA-2000 based on a report that was submitted last year by a committee constituted for the purpose. In the midst of these orchestrated campaign that the proposed amendments to ITA-2000 will meet the needs of data security in India, there is also a concern whether crimes such as e-extortions which are surfacing today are adequately dealt with in Indian law.
It is however pleasantly surprising that even the or crimes such as e-Extortions where a person causes the files in a computer to be encrypted and demands a ransom to release the files is adequately covered in Indian law as it exists today.
It is of course another thing that if the Government has its way and gets through the amendments, then the new law will not be able to take care of the e-Extortion as effectively as the present law does.
e-Extortions requires a person to enter another computer system without authority and then cause the performance of the system to degrade or lock up. The value of the data in the computer gets diminished and the utility of the system gets reduced.
These offences are covered under the existing laws with a possible imprisonment of 3 years and a liability to the victim upto Rs 10 million.
The problem of course is in the “Criminal Friendly” amendments proposed by the Government that unless it is proved that a person had acted “dishonestly”or “fraudulently” and without permission, no offence would be recognized. While in some cases of e-extortions may be fulfilling the above criteria, if an e-extortionist uses a Trojan or a virus to gain access to the victim’s computer which spreads in the wild and reaches the victim’s computer through some other computer, it would be difficult to prove conclusively that the beneficiary of the e-extortion is directly responsible for the crime.
Further, the imprisonment term could be either 1 or two years reduced from the present three years. Today Police can immediately arrest a person indulging in such crimes in any public space, under the new amendments it is proposed that the Police will not have any powers to arrest and wait for a warrant from a court.
Looking back at the time Information Technology Act 2000 was drafted, crimes such as e-Extortion could not even be envisaged. It must therefore be appreciated that either by accident or design, the law was intelligently drafted so as to cover futuristic crimes.
Naavi
(Vijayashankar)
http://www.naavi.org
What the MCIT Rejected
To appreciate the folly of the Government in suggesting amendments to ITA-2000 with an ulterior objective settling scores with the Police, it is necessary to also take a look at the suggestions made by Naavi.org which of course were not to the liking of the so called "Expert" committee. Had some of these suggestions been considered, the amendments would have been meaningful. Perhaps MCIT has no vision beyond consulting Nasscom where there appears to be a serious dearth of ideas. (These suggestions were made before the expert committee finalized its views). Suggestions
Nasscom is failing in its duty
Nasscom is the national association of software companies in India. For many aspects, Government considers Nasscom as the representative of the IT industry. Also when any reforms are meant for the ICT sector, the opinion of Nasscom becomes a key input. Nasscom Chairman is often taken into confidence when important decisions that affect the Cyber Regulations in the country.
In our considered opinion, the Government of India is making a serious mistake in allowing for the amendments to ITA-2000 go through without further major debate on the final version which will be tabled in the Parliament.
Nasscom headed by Mr Kiran Karnik. Nasscom has already taken a public stand on the issue saying in a press release that “Nasscom welcomes the Amendments”
It is our request that Mr Kiran Karnik should take personal interest in making the final draft meant for approval of the parliament available for a prolonged debate in the public domain before any action is taken....More
Misconceptions on ITA-2000 Amendments..Continue
A few days back, we had brought to the notice of the public, an article in Times of India which had tried to build a case for the early passage of the proposed amendments arguing that it would benefit the handling of Cyber Crimes. We had at that time pointed out that this was a misconception and the proposed amended act will actually dilute the current act. Now an article has appeared in Indian Express which expresses similar sentiments.
It is our considered opinion that the proposed amendments, if not substantially modified will be a fraud on the digital society in India. The worst suffers would be IT Companies and Women. Journalists need to understand the implications of the amendments before hailing the amendments based on the views of persons with vested interests. In this process, they are becoming pawns in the hands of these interests and would be responsible for the fraud on the community if the proposed amendments follow the expert committee's recommendations. ..Detailed Article
You be the judge....Are the new provisions are "Tightening of the Laws" or "Criminal Friendly".
During the last week, there have been umpteen number of press reports and blog reports in India and abroad that India is "Tightening its Cyber Laws", "Data Theft will now have stringent punishment" etc. These reports were based on a PIB press release which the media reproduced blindly.
Naavi.org has become the rare minority which has tried to clarify that if what we are talking are the amendments proposed by the "Expert Committee" which gave its report in 2005, the Government of India is committing a fraud on the public by calling the amendments "Beneficial to the community". The entire media is making a fool of itself by believing the Government propaganda and carrying reports under individual journalist's byline towing the Government line.
I hope that this Diwali, the festival of lights would remove the darkness surrounding the Cyber Law Awareness in our country and bring better understanding of the needs of the Digital Society....More
Judicial Revolution on cards
With details of 30 million cases in more than 17000 courts in India to be made available on line with magistrates using digital signatures to sign orders etc, the Indian judicial system is set for a revolution that can bring unprecedented changes in India. This will be a boon to the litigants who often are kept in the dark about the developments of a case for which they are now dependent on their advocates. Similarly, many times even copies of judgements do not reach the litigants. The current move will therefore be one of the most important e-governance developments undertaken in India which can reach the common man. More
