Global Voices Online

Iran: Students protest against “gender apartheid”

Hamid Tehrani · 21:17, March 6th, 2008 · Middle East & North Africa

lingua → mk · mg · pt · zhs · zht · de · jp · bn · sq

Hundreds of students continued a protest at Shiraz University against “gender apartheid” on Tuesday 4th of March. The students want their university to put an end to a policy that began in February of separating men and women into different classrooms.

The students also asked the President of the university to resign and demanded better conditions in their cafeteria and dormitories. They also want to have the right to choose their own delegates. On March 4th, the protest movement entered its 8th day and several bloggers covered the story, while mainstream media in country ignored it.

Here is a video film of one of student protest movements, where the students chant: “It is our final message, student movement is ready for rebellion”.

In a blog that calls itself “Socialist Students of Bahonar department of Shiraz”, we read:

A couple of hundred students chanted slogans such as “Security and peace is our absolute right” (the Iranian government usually uses a nuclear energy is our absolute right slogan). The university is not a military base.

The blogger adds that the university authorities promised protesters they would deal with their demands in the first days of demonstrations. But it seems nothing happened in reality.

The blogger says that the freedom of students has been restricted in the university because of military presence that enforces discrimination against women and girls.

Another blogger, “Socialist students of literature at Shiraz University”, protests [Fa] against the separation of genders in classes, and calls it a crime against humanity. The blogger writes that some students have been mistreated and that the growing military presence is disturbing for students.

Ta Azadi 86 writes [Fa] that the protest movement goes on while the authorities grow. The blogger says:

About 10 students were asked to appear in court. Several university professors were among the students. Basiji forces wanted to disrupt the demonstration but student resistance pushed them away.

AmirKabir Khabarnameh, a leading student information website, writes Fa] that several students' families were contacted by security forces and asked to stop their children from participating in the protest movement.

3 comments · read »

Japan: Mixi in hot water over terms of use revision

Chris Salzberg · 04:14 · East Asia

Japan's hugely popular social networking site Mixi is in hot water this week after news [ja] that a proposed revision to its Terms of Use (ToU), to become effective as of April 1st, will force its users to agree to grant Mixi no-royalty, non-exclusive rights over all content published on the site, retroactively applicable to all content uploaded before the changes to the ToU. This means that Mixi can potentially use any content on its servers (including messages sent through its messaging service), ignoring access controls on such content, and potentially profit from it.

Mixi (photo by Flickr user purprin)

Blogger fukamimi translates the most controversial part of revisions to the ToU, Article 18:

By agreeing to the ToU (which all users implicitly do by continuing to using the service):

1. Users grant Mixi a no-royalty, non-exclusive rights (of replication, broadcasting, public transmission, display, distribution, translation, alteration, etc) to any content uploaded onto Mixi servers.

2. Users agree not to assert their moral rights against Mixi. [Moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to have a work published anonymously or pseudonymously, and the right to the integrity of the work. source:Wikipedia]

(Or as Matt Alt at AltJapan put it: all your content are belong to us.)

Response to revision was swift and decisive, with forums [ja] and blogs [ja] expressing everything from confusion to outrage. While Mixi has since posted a note (viewable only to Mixi users) stating that it has received many comments and is currently investigating possible changes to the above clause, this may not be enough to stem the flow of users leaving its service. Blogger tek_koc writes:

上の文をかみ砕いて説明すると、mixi上に書いた文章や写真はmixi側で勝手に本にしたりするかもしれないよ。しかもそれは無償でだよ、改変もするかもよ、ということになります。

What the above says in plain words is that mixi may use any text or photos published on mixi as it pleases, for example to make books, etc. And on top of that there is no compensation, and the work can be changed.

コミュニティ経由で人の日記を見てみると、熱心に書いている人が本当にたくさんいる。

Taking a look at people's online diaries through the community, you can see there are really a lot of people who write passionately.

小説家を目指してのオリジナル作品、自分のイラスト、プライベートなことから、テキストサイトのような面白長文など、本当にたくさんです。

Original work by [people] aiming to become novelists, one's own illustrations, private affairs, interesting long articles like those on text sites, there are a great many of these.

そういうのを見るたび、いつもブログやサイトでやった方がいいと思うけどなぁと思ってはいたものの、余計なお世話だろうと口を噤んできました。でも、mixi側が改めてこんな規約にしたのだから、はっきり言うよ。mixi日記に何かを真面目に書くのはあまりにももったいない。

While looking at these kinds of things, I always thought to myself that it would be better to do this in a blog or a website, but it's none of my business so I shut my mouth and didn't say anything. But now that mixi has again made these kinds of rules, I will say it loud and clear. Writing serious things in a mixi diary is a terrible waste.

Many bloggers speculated on possible profit-driven motives for the revision to the ToU, some questioning the wisdom of a money-making strategy based on selling “~~crowdsurfed~~ crowdsourced content”. Blogger k-ino picked out three main reasons for the move:

mixiがなんでいきなりこういった行動をとったのか。考えられるのは、

Why has mixi suddenly taken this action? Here are some possible thoughts:

広告ビジネスの次を目指して、人気のあるコミュニティの内容などで儲ける。

未成年の飲酒喫煙など、問題が生じる日記の削除が目的

コンテンツを抱え込みたい

Aiming at the next stage after the advertising business, they hope to earn money from the contents of popular communities.
They aim to eliminate [online] diaries that create problems such as those of underage drinking and smoking.
They want to hold and dominate [online] content.

Well-known lawyer and blogger Ogura Hideo (小倉秀夫) [ja], meanwhile, blogging at benli, cites various parts of Japan's Copyright Law in tackling legal aspects of the controversial revised agreement:

mixi騒動に関して気になったことの一つに、「公表権」についての一般の誤解というのがあります。

One of the things that worries me in all the noise about mixi is that there is a common misunderstanding about “kōhyōken” (”Right of making the work public”).

公表権とは、その著作物でまだ公表されていないもの（その同意を得ないで公表された著作物を含む。以下この条において同じ。）を公衆に提供し、又は提示する権利をいいます（著作権法第１８条第１項）。つまり、著作者の同意を得て公表された著作物については、著作者は公表権を行使することはできません。

The kōhyōken states that: “The author shall have the rights to offer to and to make available to the public his work which has not yet been made public (including a work which has been made public without his consent; the same shall apply in this Article).” (Copyright Law Article 18, Clause 1.) In other words, the author cannot exercise their kōhyōken with respect to works that have been made public with the consent of the author.

従って、mixi内に投稿したコンテンツについて投稿者が公表権を行使しうるかは、この投稿行為が著作権法上の「公表」にあたるのかが問題となります。では、著作権法上の「公表」に関する規定を見てみましょう。

Therefore, with respect to the potential to exercise kōhyōken for contents contributed within mixi, the issue is whether or not the action of contributing [work] falls under the “making public” (kōhyō) of (Japanese) Copyright Law. So let us have a look at the regulation of “making public” in Copyright Law.

He then cites Clause 2, Article 4 of Japan's Copyright Law (translation courtesy of the Copyright Research and Information Center), which defines the phrase “made public” (公表された) as:

著作物は、第二十三条第一項に規定する権利を有する者又はその許諾を得た者によつて送信可能化された場合には、公表されたものとみなす。

A work shall be considered as having been “made public” when it has been put, by a person having the rights mentioned in Article 23, paragraph(1) or with the authorization of such person, in such a state that it can be made transmittable.

The expression “made transmittable” is explained in Article 2, Clause 1(ix-5) of Copyright Law as “putting in such a state that the interactive transmission can be made by either of the following acts:” (1) “to record information on public transmission memory of an interactive transmission server already connected with telecommunication networks for public use”, and (2) “to connect with telecommunication networks for public use an interactive transmission server which records information on its public transmission memory or which inputs information to itself.” (For full descriptions see the relevant passage of the translated Copyright Law.)

Ogura notes that “interactive transmission” is defined in article 2, Clause 1(ix-4) of same law as:

自動公衆送信公衆送信のうち、公衆からの求めに応じ自動的に行うもの（放送又は有線放送に該当するものを除く。）をいう。

“interactive transmission” means the public transmission made automatically in response to a request from the public, excluding the public transmission falling within the term “broadcasting” or “wire-diffusion”;

And that “public transmission” is defined as:

公衆送信　公衆によつて直接受信されることを目的として無線通信又は有線電気通信の送信（電気通信設備で、その一の部分の設置の場所が他の部分の設置の場所と同一の構内（その構内が二以上の者の占有に属している場合には、同一の者の占有に属する区域内）にあるものによる送信（プログラムの著作物の送信を除く。）を除く。）を行うことをいう。

“public transmission” means the transmission of radio communication or wire-telecommunication intended for direct reception by the public, excluding the transmission (other than that of program works) by telecommunication installations one part of which is located on the same premises where the other part is located or, if the premises are occupied by two or more persons, both parts of which are located within the area therein occupied by one person;

From all these legal definitions, he concludes:

従って、mixiが「閉じた空間」であろうとも、そのコンテンツにアクセスしうる人が「多数人」といえる程のものであった場合には、mixiへの投稿により送信可能化がなされ、著作権法上の「公表」がなされたということになります。

Therefore, even if mixi is a “closed space”, if the people who can potentially access the contents is on the order of a “great number of people”, then as a result of being contributions to mixi, works are taken to be “made transmittable” and are “made public” according to Copyright Law.

[…]

では、マイミクが少ない人は大丈夫かというと、そこがまた難しい話です。すなわち、不特定人については少数（極端な場合１人）であっても「公衆」にあたるという見解が広く支持されており、そのような見解を支持する人々の多くは、何をもって「特定」人とするかについて家族に準ずるほどの高度の個人的結合関係を必要とするという見解である場合が少なくありません（私はそういう考え方には反対なのですが。）。このような見解に立った場合、そのコンテンツにアクセスできる人の数が少ないとしても、コンテンツ投稿者と、これにアクセスすることができる人との間に、家族に準ずるほどの個人的結合関係がない限り、投稿＝送信可能化＝公表ということになり、その時点で公表権を喪失するということになります。

However it is still difficult to say, just because the number of people on “my mixi” is small, that things are okay. That is to say, the view with respect to “unspecified number of people” that even a small number of people (one person in the extreme case) constitutes “public” has broad support, and among the many people who support this view, there are more than a few with the view that “specific” persons requires a bond as highly personal as those at the level of family (I personally object to this kind of idea). Based on this view, even if there are only a small number of people who access contents, as long as the relations between the content creator and those who access the contents are not on the level of the personal bonds within families, the logic that “contribution” = “making transmittable” = “public” applies, and at that point the “kōhyōken” (”Right of making the work public”) is forfeited.