Lawrence Liang is an Indian academic and lawyer. He is currently a professor of law at Ambedkar University Delhi. He is known for his legal campaigns on issues of public concern. He is a co-founder of the Alternative Law Forum and by 2006 had emerged as a spokesperson against the politics of "intellectual property". In 2017, he received the Infosys Prize for Social Sciences in recognition of his creative scholarship on law and society. Liang's key areas of interest are law, popular culture and content piracy. He has been working closely with Sarai, New Delhi on a joint research project Intellectual Property and the Knowledge/Culture Commons. Liang is a "keen follower of the open source movement in software", Lawrence Liang has been working on ways of translating the open source ideas into the cultural domain. Segments of an interview with Liang commenting extensively on copyright and culture are featured in '' Steal This Film'' (Two). Liang is author of ''Sex, Laws and Videotape: The Public is Watching'' (with Mayur Suresh and Namita Avriti Malhotra), published by Public Service Broadcasting Trust and ''Guide to Open Content Licenses'', published by the Piet Zwart Institute in 2004.

Work

He has critiqued and influenced the debate on changes in the Indian Copyright Act. " We were trying to oppose that, showing how such a law would be harmful for creative

innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or service (economics), services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a n ...

. Right now we are also supporting a campaign in

pharmaceutical Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the ...

policies. But our focus is not so much on policy advocacy, because you cannot really defend the grey economy and be on policy bodies. With regard to government, we try to push for the

open-source model Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

, arguing that public money should go into public intellectual property," Liang said in the December 2004 interview to World-Information.org. In 2004 he was a research fellow at Media Design Research, Piet Zwart Institute,

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

Advisor/mentor

Liang was also group advisor/mentor of the 2006–07 International Policy Fellowship of the

Open Society Institute Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is an American grantmaking network founded by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with the s ...

JNU Protests

During the famous 2016 protests at Jawaharlal Nehru University where he was a PhD student at the time, Liang gave a public speech as part of an 'Alternative Classroom' on laws relating to sedition.

Background

Liang is a graduate from the

National Law School of India University The National Law School of India University (NLSIU), commonly referred to as the National Law School (NLS), is a Public university, public State university (India), state law university established under the National Law School of India Act, 19 ...

, and pursued a master's degree in

Warwick Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon, Warwickshire, River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined wit ...

, England on a Chevening Scholarship. He obtained his PhD in Cinema Studies from the School of Arts and Aesthetics at

Jawaharlal Nehru University Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU; ISO: Javāharalāla Neharū Viśvavidyālaya) is a public research university located in Delhi, India. It was established in 1969 and named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The university ...

in 2017. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan School of Information and the Center for South Asian Studies as part of the Hughes Fellowship in 2014 an
Rice Visiting Scholar
at Yale University in 2016-17. He is currently Professor of Law at School of Law, Governance and Citizenship, Ambedkar University Delhi, India.

References

External links