I applaud this move. It should force the IIPA to show its true colors, since it's not really "anti-piracy" or "copyright enforcement" that could be motivating their objections. India's offer already covers those issues sufficiently.<p>No, instead what they are after is further restriction on fair use and preventing threats to their business model from open source software and domestic procurement policies. What a surprise.
From Wikipedia: "Andres Guadamuz, a lecturer in law at the University of Edinburgh discovered that the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) representing the U.S. media industry is urging the United States government to consider countries like Indonesia, Brazil and India to be put on the Special 301 watchlist because of them mandating or suggesting the use of open source software, somehow considering it as a harmful act roughly equivalent to not combating piracy, and not taking into account that also many of the U.S. companies that the IIPA represents depend on using open source software in their own business"
I hope that India will always stay on top of 301 list
This is pretty sensible. If India passed any draconion law, then it would be a trouble for the citizens who are already pissed off by high-prices of content that is pirated.<p>e.g. The price of buying a track is pretty high. $0.90 for a track in US is acceptable, but not in India where standard of living is not like other countries.<p>The chief reason piracy is a hit in India is due to stupid pricing. If a book costs $10, then it will surely be pirated by a lot number of people. Classical example was "Harry Potter" books. It was priced at 700INR IIRC. Not everyone can buy it. Pirated books were available at 150-200INR and sold like hot cakes.<p>Moral of the story:
Fix your damn price and see the sales shoot up.
India cannot comply with western copyright schemes, there are so many poor people that when you seclude them from music and software you'd have a civil war on your hands.<p>Besides, the western way is plain wrong, it's a big bet of them to gamble their employ-ability on IP, and it will go sour on them, no matter how many military efforts used.
In México there are pirate DVD operations on busy street corners and ads on teevee trying to embarrass infringers. The government doesn't care. MPAA wants to charge one full week's wages at the legal minimum wage <i>before taxes</i> for each single copy of a movie and the state is just not going to make people pay that.<p>The IPAA people have to jail every digital device in China, India, Mexico, and the like to close their content, overturn the doctrine of first sale, and permanently deny all fair use. They won't be able to.<p>Instead what happens is that technology development gets blocked in the countries IPAA runs. It's illegal to jailbreak, unlock, and otherwise innovate with cheap mass market technology in the USA. And that just means the Congress is sending the future to China. Or México. Or India. Or Canada, apparently, if this article is right.