Photocopying unit faces copyright infringement suit

Cambridge University Press, along with Oxford University Press and an online journals company Francis and Taylor have filed a copyright infringement suit against Delhi University and Rameshwari Photocopy Services, a photocopying shop located on the premises of Delhi School of Economics. The trio (Big P), alleges that the shop has been involved in creating illegal, pirated versions of books originally published by them. The shop has been accused of copyright infringement.

Big P has asked for damages amounting to sixty lakhs. Damages sought is on the assumption that every photocopy is a lost sale but aside from this dubious assumption inflated sums are usually a part of the shock and awe tactics that copyright owners use to establish a test case.

DU students have put forth the argument, that many of the courses just prescribe one or two chapters from the books, so it is not feasible for them, to buy the books, which are most of the times, exorbitantly priced. Most of the students come from economically weaker sections of the society.  
This is not the case, just with DU. Almost all college going students across India, get the books photocopied.  Sec. 52(1)(i) of Copyright Act of 1957,   allows for ‘the reproduction of any work by a teacher or a pupil in the course of instruction’ or as a part of questions or answers to questions. Further a fair dealing with any work  (except computer programs) for the purposes of private or personal use, including research is also excepted from provisions of infringement.  Therefore, reproduction by photocopy for educational purposes is allowed under the Copyright legislation.

In this war between the publishers, and the shop, the ultimate losers are the students, who for no fault of theirs have to suffer.  As a student of DU, rightly puts forth, “You just cannot produce scholars with a ban on photocopying course material.” It would be very much interesting to watch now how courts are going to handle the situation.

Contributed by: Abhishek 

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