Chief of eBay's Indian Site Arrested, Released

An anonymous reader writes "As reported, Avinash Bajaj, the CEO of Baazee.com, the Indian subsidiary of eBay, was arrested by the Indian police for distributing pornography. What really seems to have happened is that two high school students from Delhi Public School filmed themselves having oral sex, and this video was distributed through Delhi by email. Some time later, Ravi Raj Singh, a college student from IIT Delhi, offered his VCD of the 157-second clip for sale on Baazee. Avinash Bajaj has now been released on bail, but his U.S. passport is still impounded. AP report here." In reaction to the scandal, SoumyaRay writes, "the Indian government is planning a law based on the DMCA that would establish the responsibility of the corporation when dealing with copyrighted materials. The law 'would deal with four categories of functions by a service provider: transitory communications, system caching, storage of information on systems or networks and information location tools.' Does this differ in any major way with the DMCA? What is being overlooked and what is the potential for abuse? What would you propose?"

Comments

My proposal

[Ckwop]

My proposal? Let people have their pornography. Sex is something for everyone and I really don't understand how cultures get so upset about it; after all, it is the most important human function.. our society is built on the foundations of sexual relationships. India may be a democracy but theres no point in democracy if you're no more free than you would be under a tyrant. Freedom is not the same as democracy.

Simon.

Re:My proposal

[metlin]

Sex is all fine and dandy, but you're ignoring the fact that this is the video of a girl which has been publicized without her consent.

While the arrest of Bajaj (the CEO) was wrong, I do not see why it was wrong on the part of the government to clamp down on the distribution of the video.

She shared her intimate moments with someone she trusted, and the jerk betrayed her. This is less about sex and more about privacy.

Re:My proposal

[Anonymous Coward]

A factoid [in the actual latinate sense of the word]: distributing child pornography is immoral because creating child pornography usually requires the sexual abuse of a child. Not the case here. However, it begs a question: who owns the copyright to this? Whoever was operating the filming equipment?

1. Virus infects computer, WEBCAM TURN ON
2. Virus streams to remote "user"
3. Computer owner removes virus, shows webcam clip as evidence against virus writer
4. Virus writer sues for copyright infringement

Of course, the DMCA could never override a criminal investigation...

Re:My proposal

[drsmithy]

Even if you discount the law of the land (IANAL, in any case), most people would consider peddling child porn as immoral in ANY country.

A video of someone over the age of consent having consensual intercourse hardly qualifies as kiddie porn. Indeed, considering it such is a bit of an insult to children who were actually sexually abused.

Re:My proposal

[Baroova]

My thoughts exactly. The public school has expelled the girl for something which she has not commited at the school site, nor has she misused the name of the school in any way. The school has in fact never educated any of its students on the do's and dont's of sex which gives it no right to judge the girl. The boy, on the other hand, deceived the girl. I have seen the video and it is evident from it that she was participating in it because it was private to the two of them. According to the news reports, when the girl broke up with the boy a few days later, the boy sold the video to his class mates and friends for a small fee to get even with the girl. The government has been active in addressing the issue in the most in appropiate way, arresting people for promoting pornography when this is a case of intrusion of privacy and trust, for which the boy should have been arrested as early as possible. But he was arrested only 4 days ago, almost 2 weeks after it all started! The govt. went overboard in arresting and lodging Bajaj in Tihar Jail, where only the hardened criminals are lodged. A heavy fine or a suspension of the site (www.baazee.com) for a few days would have been a more appropiate reaction.

Re:My proposal

[gunnk]

A heavy fine or a suspension of the site (www.baazee.com) for a few days would have been a more appropiate reaction.

I have to disagree with you on that last point. Baazee took down the auction as soon as they became aware of it. They did the right thing from the very beginning as far as I can tell. There was no intent on the part of Baazee to distribute pornography.

Suppose one day someone slid some child pornography under your front door. Would you believe that you should be fined or arrested for possession of those materials? You certainly never planned on possessing those materials any more than Baazee planned on selling pornographic materials.

In situations like this there has to be intent in order for their to be wrongdoing.

Are they going to arrest

[halaloszto]

The CEO of the Postal Service for distributing drugs and weapons.

The CEOs of the Railway companis for transporting criminals.

The managers of several hotels for hiding criminals.

This is insane. vajk

Re:Knee-jerk?

[pamri]

In this case, it's India's IT Act which has allowed this crap of holding the service provider responsible for all acts of it's users. This story from the same newspaper shows the aptitude & intelligence of Indian cops and lawmakers when it comes to technology.

Re:Ummm, She Was 16...

[dJOEK]

Take off that American blindfold of yours.

there are plenty of countries where the age of consent is much much lower.
http://www.ageofconsent.com/

Your culture and views are not globally accepted, and that is how it should be.

Re: Insanity

[Alwin Henseler]

From the summary: "the Indian government is planning a law based on the DMCA that would establish the responsibility of the corporation when dealing with copyrighted materials."

The word "responsible" is what it boils down to here. One should determine guilt on "Who was responsible for it?".

If you run a website, and you do maintenance personally, than you are responsible for putting content on the site. If I upload some kiddie porn to my site, then I did that, and I should be held responsible for that.

But: in the case of large sites like ISP's or eBay, with huge numbers of customers, it doesn't work that way, does it? You have an automated system where users modify some bits all by themselves. Regulated, managed, but users do the uploading.

So who was responsible for the 'dirty deed' here? The CEO of Baazee.com? No, from what I read, he had nothing to do with uploading the material. Who uploaded the material then? Some user of the site. So that user should be held responsible.

What is the problem?

[Peeteriz]

Honestly, I can't see what the hassle is about?

It's not like this is some kind of kiddy rape, these are consentual activities by young adults having fun.

The girl, while punished by her parents, has accused the attackers of hypocrisy, saying "who doesn't do it? Don't you have sex?"

In many countries they both would be considered not minors, as 16-17 years is a perfectly good age of consent, and they could get married against the will of parents, have sex without repercussions, etc.

I understand that child porn laws might apply to some pervert uncle seducing his 12 year old relative, but it is clear that 16 year old having consentual sex with a 17 year old is NOT what these laws should apply to. Same thing with a 19 year old with a 17 year old 'minor'.

Criminals are born like this.....

[riteshm]

.... so even Slashdot is added to my list now.

Let me tell you about a different issue arising out of the whole situation.

The IIT student Ravi Raj is still not pronounced guilty! But still the Indian Hypocrite media did what they should never do. They published his name (Nobody knows the names of the guy and girl who had sex), his dad's name, his dad's profession and his home address in headlines! Now my narrow-minded Indian society won't let this guy or his family live easily. This guy even if pronounced not guilty by the court, will not be able to live a clean life in the future. His IIT degree is already taken away, now his career is in shambles.

Oh by the way, almost all IITians see porn in their dorms (they usually have 5% girls in their batch). This guy's only crime was he tried to act over-smart. But shouldn't he be given another chance? For God's sake, he is not a criminal who's whereabouts to be told to the whole world!

For more info: check http://riteshm.blogspot.com/2004/12/iit-and-dps.ht ml

weird indeed !

[phreakv6]

It really dint make sense to me that they arrested the CEO of the company for this.For that matter those pictures was exchanged through mms last month,why dont u blame nokia CEO for making phones that enabled this sharing or even the Hutch/Airtel networks that enabled these gprs connections.

just how many pr0n producers seek copyright anyway

[museumpeace]

The art. confuses me: How would a DMCA-style law which spells out copyright obligations of ISPs, users, etc have any impact on porn?
I don't see that DMCA has stemmed the tide of porn in the US. FAIK, the laws against porn in the US have an unintended consequence of reducing access and penalizing copying in ways that DMCA was supposed to provide for legit content and thus the ultimate beneficiary of the laws is the producers and scum-runners who don't have to compete with as much free copies of their "product" as do the musicians and legal movie industry.
Have you seen a smut-peddler's equivalent of MPAA going to judges and slapping subpoena's on file sharers?...maybe they don't need to do that?