InfoMedia18’s Local Search Portal, AskMe Goes off the Web
JustDial sued InfoMedia’s newly launched local search engine, Askme.in earlier (JustDial Sues Askme, Portal asked to shut down by Court) and AskMe.in has been shutdown for now (503 error).
While the two companies fight it out (the decision was passed yesterday, i.e. Jan 29th), this is quite a milestone for Indian IP law. In fact, t
his sets a precedent and will probably help whole lot of companies who have an IP in the content which can easily be copied by others.
What’s interesting is that the case was filed in Delhi and not Bangalore or Mumbai – I spoke to an IP lawyer regarding this and he explained the reason – “Bangalore/Mumbai court hardly understands what a website is, so forget about fighting a case on content”.
Indian IP laws are still archaic and the recently amended IT Act is too broad to cover such cases.
An interesting issue here is whether copyright applies to databases – for eg. a phone directory. Hopefully, this dispute will lead to a clear answer.
cheers
nilesh
no body has a copyright over a databse…
but then when ask me…copies the same ..word to word from just dial…
this is what happens…
@nilesh I am sure justdial has more content than phone nos. and email ids
As long as it is factual data, and not an “expression of ideas” or “work of art”, this remains in the vague territory.
basically ask me will expose the whole copying business burrp and ubhi are into…they pick up all the databases of events from times papers….then mid day…etc etc….ask me …team gets trained by t hem…they are given the yellow pages to pull in data..and then they decide to take on just dial..by copying their entire database…word to word..including spelling errors…
and when hell breaks lose….ubhi decides to quit…!!!
http://deapthought.wordpress.com/2010/01/17/curtain-call/
copyright can arise in a database if you can prove that the dara isn’t obvious or that considerable skill & effort went into its creation/ presentation. Usually this doesn’t apply to telephone directories and the like, as the format is pretty obvious and requires little or no skill in its arrangement.
i haven’t seen the order so don’t know what all justdial is claiming copyright in but the injunction against askme was granted without hearing them and it remains to be seen whether it’ll hold up to a full hearing of both parties
While I know of the real story behind this lawsuit, guess it wont be right to share them here (the case is still subjudice).
To give you guys an idea, JD had enough proof of the fact that their data was being copied – there was some uniqueness about the data, that was just okay to be accepted as a solid proof.
@Ashish – do you really believe that Bangalore/Mumbai court doesn’t know what a website is? I think that JD knows how to khilao pilao in Delhi courts and get what they want. I mean, why would the order be granted without hearing out the other party? C’mon what was the big hurry on a friday evening? Even when JD sued the hyderabad company, they sued them in delhi courts.