Damini

I’ve got a film called ‘Damini’ playing on the TV next to me. I read a review of the film and have absolutely no desire to watch it although I suspect I’m going to watch it anyway. The basic story seems to be:

• poor village girl named Damini marries rich urban man
• taunted by her mother-in-law, she makes friends with the maid
• the maid is raped by her brother-in-law and three others in her marital home
• Damini initially unwittingly helps to cover-up the incident
• she later fights for justice for the maid
• while doing this, her in-laws buy everyone in the system who can be bought, she herself is declared mentally unstable and the maid is killed
• she somehow escapes from a mental institution in which she has been dumped because of being supposedly mentally unstable and goes on to continue fighting for justice with the help of a lawyer who’s given up on justice
• she ultimately succeeds primarily because her husband has a change of heart and supports her

Apart from the fact that it’s a little too easy for the story to have been true for me to have any desire watch it, I can’t help but wonder if — as inappropriate as this is to say — it’d have been smarter not to fight for justice. Damini would not have had to go through all that she did go through and, even more importantly, I can’t help but suspect that if there was no such fight, the maid would not have been killed (since she seems to have been killed primarily to ensure that the rapist’s family’s ‘honour’ was not denigrated).
The film ends very neatly with the criminals getting their just deserts but that hasn’t stopped me from wondering if there are times (in real life) when it’s a good idea to cut one’s losses and leave vengeance to God?

New Business Models

Copyright, as it’s manifested itself in today’s world isn’t working too well. Some companies have been aggressively protecting their intellectual property primarily by suing infringers left, right and centre. So far, for the most part, they’ve failed miserably when it comes to preventing infringement — or piracy as they often call it.
Some companies seem to have realised that traditional business models need to be changed by allowing greater access to their intellectual property. I don’t know of companies which have simply given up all claim to their copyright but there are companies which seem to be exploring ways to reduce infringement which don’t involve dragging infringers to court.
In India, Moser Baer seems to have begun doing this by offering inexpensive VCDs and DVDs of films.
Recently, Random House offered an entire book as a pdf download — Beautiful Children by Charles Bock — without charge for a limited time hoping to generate interest in the book and hoping that those who read the book online would want to own a traditional copy of it.
And now, The Guardian reports:
“Penguin is planning to offer audiobooks that are free of digital copyright protection technology, which will allow buyers to play them on any digital device, dismissing fears that they could become the latest target for online pirates.”
None of these companies are giving up their copyright and moving towards more placing more material in the public domain. However, they do seem to be realising that their current business models are not working too well and that they are fighting a losing battle against infringement.