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Chief of eBay's Indian Site Arrested, Released

Posted by timothy on from the stupid-lucky-high-school-kids dept.

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?"

2 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Insanity by Bioanarchism · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is utterly insane. Apparently the distribution of pornographic material doesn't constitute the rights for the authorities to arrest the CEO. Everyday auction sites around the world, not only Bazee, experience a new item submission every 5 minutes. In retrospect, how can anyone keep track of all incoming and outgoing items that registered users submit? This is totally absurd that the CEO is arrested based on this fact. Shouldn't the one who submitted the item be arrested instead? Or how about the people that appeared in the video? There is lawleness in these law.

    --
    Often we do not have time for our friends, yet all the time in the world for our enemies.
  2. Re:My proposal by liangzai · · Score: 5, Interesting
    it is the western missionaries that brought sexual repression to the east. when the victorian missionaries showed up with their straitlaced attitudes, that was the end of the good times as far as most people were concerned.

    Not so. China had liberal attitudes toward sex before and under Tang (581-617), but thereafter declined into more social control. It has nothing to do with Christianity or westerners. Chinese people have always been sexually open, just that it is taboo talking about it. The Chinese prudence is on the surface and on the surface only. The same goes for most of Asia. Japan, although very influenced by the West, is probably the most extreme country in the world when it comes to sex. Yet there is prudence also in Japan.

    The impact of Christianity in China is virtually none. This is fortunate.