PHOTOCOPYING CONTROVERSY IN INDIA:

Photocopying the university course material is the biggest controversy faced by the students of Indian Universities. The legal action against this act has been taken by three of the world`s leading publisher: Oxford University Press, Taylor Francis and Cambridge University Press in order to stop textbook copying. A lawsuit was launched last year against Delhi University and a photocopy shop nearby the university for producing photocopied materials from the books and journals and providing them to the students for their course work.

"Where course packs are available, our books stop selling - even libraries stop buying multiple copies," says Manas Saikia, Managing Director of publisher CUP India. "[This affects] the income of authors and returns to publishers."

This lawsuit was based on a number of claims by publishers regarding unethical and unauthorized photocopying of their material. More than $110,000 was demanded by the publishers for the caused damages.

"The illegal reproduction and sale of infringing copies … is unfair and cannot be permitted under the Copyright Act, 1957," the lawsuit says.

An immediate action was taken by the Delhi High Court and they banned the unauthorized reproduction of any sort until the resolution of this issue.

Many of the academicians based in the UK, the US, Australia, South Africa, and Argentina raised their voice against this act. They believed that the publishers are acting in their own interest and that this type of photocopying is not breaching the parameters of the law and hence acceptable. According to them, reproduction of publishers’ material through photocopying is not causing any of them to lose money while it is an important part of education in India.

Nivedita Menon, one of the professors at the University of Delhi, expressed his views in the following manner, “The action is entirely to do with profit, and nothing to do with the authors, whose living expenses are met by the publicly funded university system, not piddly royalties,"

The judicial cases in India take many years to be resolved and this particular case is no different, but its outcome will undoubtedly leave an enduring impression on the global publishing industry