Consultative Paper to Get Draconian Copyright Laws Changed

or Repealed

By Rakesh Raman June 2023

Appeal: This paper is addressed to the concerned local and international authorities with the appeal to review and repeal the draconian copyright laws in the contemporary world driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and freely shareable social media content.

Author: Rakesh Raman [ a journalist and social activist ]

Consultative Paper to Get Draconian Copyright Laws Changed or Repealed Photo: RMN News Service

Introduction

The archaic copyright laws that were written in the pre-tech era should not be applicable in today’s modern world where there is an information explosion and most people share content innocuously on social media or millions of blogs without any evil intent.

These days, a multitude of firms or individuals are running extortion rackets behind the opaque veils of copyrights to terrorize innocent technology users and extort money from them with the unfounded allegations of copyright violations. I am also a victim of one such fraud as a company tried to extort money from me with criminal intimidation.

Now, almost all the copyright cases filed in courts or other administrative or judicial forums should be dismissed under the “FAIR USE” statute that is supposed to promote freedom of expression and / or editorial freedom. While most countries have signed the Berne Convention (adopted in 1886) which allows content reuse for quotations and news reporting, there is a need to further strengthen the content reuse framework.

The revamped content reuse guidelines should enable free flow of information as information consumption and dissemination is a fundamental right of all stakeholders, and which should take precedence over the straitjacketed copyright laws.

[ You can click here to download the full paper on copyright laws or click here to read it in the e-book format. ]

Making Websites to Check Crimes in Delhi Housing Societies

Hundreds of thousands of Delhi residents are suffering and they have no forum where they could complain against the MC members.

The cooperative group housing societies (CGHS) of Delhi have become dangerous centers of crime and corruption. The crimes in these housing societies are being committed by the management committee (MC) members or administrators in connivance with the corrupt officials of Registrar Cooperative Societies (RCS) of Delhi Government, Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Delhi Police, Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), and a few other departments.

One of the main reasons for increasing crimes in housing societies is the lack of transparency. The MCs prefer to work opaquely in order to swindle public money from residents.

Although the RCS office has issued repeated directives for housing societies asking them to make their websites, the MCs and administrators blatantly ignore those directives.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of CGHS residents are suffering and they have no forum where they could complain against the MC members. As a journalist and social activist, I have been running the “Clean House” service to report about crime and corruption cases in housing societies.

As part of this service, I have developed a video to make residents aware of the website rule so that they should force their MCs or administrators to make society websites. You can click here to watch the video on RMN YouTube Channel and you can also click here to file your complaint through the “Clean House” service.

Thank You

Rakesh Raman

Sexual Harassment Case: Wrestlers Leading a Directionless Protest

Instead of having a friendly tête-à-tête with the cunning BJP ministers, the wrestlers need to think wisely about the direction of their protest which has already gone directionless.

The protest being led by Indian wrestlers Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat, and Bajrang Punia against the accused Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh is going totally haywire.

Will Wrestlers Get Justice in Sexual Harassment Case Against BJP Leader?

After meeting sports minister Anurag Thakur on June 7 and home minister Amit Shah the previous week, the protesting wrestlers have failed to get what they demand - the imprisonment of Brij Bhushan. Strangely, however, according to reports the wrestlers have stopped their protest.

Since the wrestlers are surrounded by naive or almost illiterate supporters, they are not able to articulate their demands for which they have been protesting. While their main demand is the arrest of Brij Bhushan, they should discuss other issues only after his arrest.

The reports suggest that during their meetings with the ministers - who are actually the colleagues of accused Brij Bhushan - the wrestlers are demanding an impartial investigation into the sexual harassment case that Brij Bhushan is facing. However, the wrestlers fail to understand that if the ministers in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of prime minister Narendra Modi want to protect the BJP leader Brij Bhushan, they will say that the police investigation is impartial even if it has many flaws.

Actually, Delhi Police is notorious for submitting dubious investigation reports that suit the evil designs of the ruling party BJP. For example, a Delhi court had found that the standard of police investigation into a large number of 2020 northeast Delhi riots cases was “very poor”.

While the corrupt Delhi Police works under secret directions from the home ministry, the court commented that the police did not bother to take the investigation to a logical end after filing half-baked charge sheets.

The judges who disagree with the investigations of Delhi Police are punished with transfers as it happened in 2021 when a judge who reprimanded the careless Delhi Police officials for conducting a lousy investigation was transferred.

Under these circumstances, the wrestlers will not have any forum where they could complain against the police investigation and they will have to accept the police findings that will exonerate Brij Bhushan. Even if the harassed wrestlers go to court, they are unlikely to get justice as most Indian courts including the Supreme Court are either complicit in state crimes or they form perfunctory committees to acquit the BJP politicians such as Brij Bhushan.

There is also a likelihood that the wrestlers who have complained against Brij Bhushan are implicated in false cases as it had happened last year when social activist Teesta Setalvad complained against the dubious investigation into the Gujarat riots in which Modi is an accused. Setalvad was punished by the Modi government in collusion with the Supreme Court.

The wrestlers have, in fact, experienced the Delhi Police brutality when on May 28, they were not only attacked ruthlessly by the police, but false cases of rioting were also filed against them for protesting peacefully.

In order to protect the BJP leader Brij Bhushan, the Modi government may ostensibly accept the other demands of wrestlers such as scrapping of police cases against them and reforms in the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI).

But when the wrestlers end their protest, it will be a status quo and in the process Brij Bhushan will stay acquitted. Earlier, it had happened during the year-long farmers’ protest in 2021 when farmers failed to get any of their demands - including the main demand of minimum support price (MSP) - accepted after stopping their agitation around Delhi.

Despite a massive protest by farmers, Modi did not remove another BJP leader Ajay Mishra, a Minister of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India. Ajay Mishra is accused of a conspiracy to murder a few protesting farmers in 2021 at Lakhimpur Kheri in the Uttar Pradesh (UP) state.

And even if Brij Bhushan is jailed, the Modi government will soon release him as it had released last year the Bilkis Bano case convicts who were jailed for the rape and murder of innocent people. Therefore, instead of having a friendly tête-à-tête with the cunning BJP ministers, the wrestlers need to think wisely about the direction of their protest which has already gone directionless.

Who Should be the Prime Minister of India After the 2024 Lok Sabha Election?

RMN Poll: PM of India After 2024 Election?

Raman Media Network (RMN) Company – which is working in diversified content creation, management, and distribution businesses on a global scale – has started an online public poll: Who Should be the Prime Minister of India After the 2024 Lok Sabha Election?

Who Should be the Prime Minister of India After the 2024 Lok Sabha Election? RMN Poll

Instead of including the names of only traditional politicians in the poll, RMN has taken a breakthrough editorial decision to select a few candidates who deserve to be the prime minister (PM) of India because of their social activism and intellectual ability. The respondents can, however, vote according to their preference. You can also suggest more names of candidates to be included in the poll.

The poll results up to June 13, 2023: Amartya Sen (24%), Arundhati Roy (24%), Mahua Moitra (20%), Narendra Modi (11%), Rahul Gandhi (10%), Satyapal Malik (4%), Arvind Kejriwal (4%), and None of the Above (3%).

Note: As there are repeated reports about the fraudulent use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) in Indian elections, this poll does not take into account the EVM factor.

Now, you can choose your option in the following poll. Select your option and press the box under the options to vote. You can also view the results of the poll.

Who Should be the Prime Minister of India After the 2024 Lok Sabha Election?

This RMN Poll is part of our editorial section “Power Play: Lok Sabha Election 2024 in India” which covers election news, events, and political campaigns.

You can click here to participate in the RMN Poll.