How DU’s Rameshwari Photocopy Service won a David vs Goliath battle
Rameshwari
Photocopy Service owner Dharam Pal Singh recounts the four-year-old legal
battle in securing rights to provide students with photocopies of course packs
New
Delhi: It was just
another day on the campus of the Delhi School of Economics (DSE); except that a
small shop, Rameshwari Photocopy Service, tucked near the institute’s canteen
won a four-year legal battle against international publishers.
On
Friday, the Delhi high court restored the shop’s right to provide students with
photocopies of course packs.
One
would expect a shop that was sued for $1 million by international publishers to
at least have a signboard. Not so, says the owner of Rameshwari Photocopy,
Dharam Pal Singh. “Board ki kya zarurat hai, Madam? Sabko pata hai.”
(What’s the need for a sign board, Madam? Everybody knows it.)
Singh,
45, has been running the shop equipped with four photocopy machines for the
last 20 years. But a legal notice in August of 2012 came to him as a shock. The
notice informed Singh that a group of international publishers, including
Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Taylor and Francis
Group, had brought a lawsuit in the Delhi high court alleging copyright
infringement through sale of photocopied course packs to students.
It
was clear, Singh said, that his shop was targeted because it was famous.
On
17 October 2012, the Delhi high court passed an order restraining Singh from
selling photocopied compilation of study material to students.
Explaining
the issue, Singh pulled out a course pack used by law students studying at the
Faculty of Law, Delhi University. “There are a large number of case laws
including international case laws which the students have been prescribed to
study. We try to help them by compiling from different books and selling it to
them at affordable rates.
We
only take few chapters from a particular book, around 40-50 pages, which is
permissible under the law. According to me, that should not amount to copyright
infringement as the purpose of academic publishing is never to make profits.”
Publishers,
however, contest this. They claim it is incorrect to say that academic
publishing is a non-profit venture.
Anirudh
Wadhwa, partner at Wadhwa law chambers and editor of several law publications,
said: “Academic publishing is not a charity. University affiliated publishing
houses (like Oxford University, Cambridge University Press) are an extension of
the respective universities which own and control them and any money that they
make, belongs to the university.
Making
of photocopied course packs makes it easy for students but the
publishers/authors deserve to be compensated where the content used is beyond a
fair threshold. The judgment allowing photocopying of entire chapters from an
academic text, in my opinion, crosses the line of fair use and has ignored the
publishers’ side of the story.”
According
to Singh, international publishers used this case as a testing ground for
applicability of copyright law in education. “The publishers needed a starting
point, wanted to test the probability of winning such a case. If they had won
against us, they would have implemented it on every other shop on campus...
As
the case progressed, support from university teachers, students and
academicians poured in. The Association of Students for Equitable Access to
Knowledge fought for students rights in the courtroom while renowned lawyers
including copyright expert, Lawrence Liang, offered support.
“I
received a lot of support from students, teachers, lawyers etc. Without their
help, it wouldn’t have been possible to win against big publishing houses,”
Singh said.
Despite
all the support, he still had to engage his own lawyer because of some
technical issues.
The
courts’ initial restraining order particularly affected Rameshwari Photocopy as
it began to lose out to other photocopy shops which had initially stopped
offering photocopying services of course material but continued to sell the
course packs later.
He
considers the Delhi high court’s ruling as his personal victory since the
students weren’t as much affected.
While
photocopying at one shop was restricted, students found other ways to get notes
photocopied. “If I refuse to photocopy, students have the option to approach some
other shop in the nearby colleges including law faculty, Hindu, St. Stephens,
etc. There are around 300-400 machines outside this college which the students
can use,” he added.
Rajat
Kumar, a student pursuing an M. Phil. degree in Sociology from DSE, is unaware
of the long legal battle. “Students were not really affected during the four
years that the case was being heard. We usually took pictures of notes on our
phones or on a pen drive and got it printed from some other shop,” said Kumar.
Source | Mint | 21 September 2016
Regards
Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
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