DU teachers unite to fight copyright breach slur

Authors and teachers came together on Wednesday to show their solidarity against the recent move of the consortium of international publishing houses — Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and

Taylor & Francis, slapping a case against Delhi School of Economics (DSE) photocopy shop citing copyright infringement.

The publishing houses have also claimed Rs 60 lakh as damages. 

“I was the happiest person when my book was put up on the web, giving it open access to all. Knowledge cannot be contained, it has to keep moving,” said

Satish Deshpande, head of the Sociology department.

 “We don’t even get huge royalties by writing these books. We put in a lot of efforts and years in for the people to read them,” added

Deshpande.

Several academic authors signed photocopies of their printed books and donated them to school’s library.

Author and former faculty member of DSE Amartya Sen, who could not come, said, “I am distressed to learn about the attitude of the Oxford

University Press (OUP) on the use of photocopied course packs for the benefit of students.”

“I am personally distressed as an OUP author to learn about this policy decision. I hope something can be done to make the academic arrangements for the education of students less difficult and more sensible,” he said.

Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Nivedita Menon said the fact that the teaching community is able to write is because it is a public-funded institution and the funds come from taxes. “We write to be read. Students pay us, publishers do not pay us,” said Menon.

According to Menon, India has one of the best copyright laws. “Ninety-nine per cent of academic authors even after publishing their books with these publishing houses will call this action illegal,” she added.  As per

Section 52(1) (h) of the Indian Copyright Act, “(h) the reproduction of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work- (i) by a teacher or a pupil in the course of instruction; or (ii) as part of the questions to be answered in an examination; or (iii) in answers to such questions” is permissible and constitutes an exception to the Act. 

There is no quantitative restriction on the amount of material that can be photocopied.

Historian Uma Chakravarty said, “All my works are mine and my labour. The more it is read the more fulfilled I am as a scholar. Copyright go to hell.”

Author Arundhati Roy also sent photostated copy of her recent book

‘Broken Republic’ lending support to the campaign.

Bonojit Hussain, student leading the campaign, is of the view that the issue is not about disallowing a photocopy shop to make copies of the reading material but to make people aware that photocopying reading material is not illegal.

“All the photocopy shops in DU have suddenly started self-policing by putting up posters that they will not make copies of complete books as it is illegal which is not the case,” he said. He also added that similar incident took place in Pune Univeristy recently. Student alumni of Oxford Univeristy has also sent a petition to OUP regarding such an act,” he said.

Source: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/284567/du-teachers-unite-fight-copyright.html

Absent libraries, photocopied minds

What the case of the photocopying shop versus the academic presses demonstrates is the failure of the Indian library system and a parallel lack of intellectual growth

Nilanjana S Roy / New Delhi Sep 25, 2012, 00:26 IST

Once the ragging was over, freshers at Delhi University (DU) often went through a more pleasant initiation rite — the handing over of stacks of photocopied notes and chapters from books, a legacy passed down from seniors to their juniors.

Those stacks were substantial enough to qualify as quasi-books in their own right. Some of these faux anthologies had the impressive patina of age and signs of a fledgling democracy of colleges in DU: notes that had been passed down from Kirori Mal through St Stephens via South Campus colleges from generation to generation.

So when two academic presses, Oxford University Press (OUP) and Cambridge University Press (CUP), sued the small photocopying shop that operates near the Delhi School of Economics and the University of Delhi for infringement of copyright, they appeared to have threatened a venerable tradition. Students protested, threatened a boycott of the two presses, defending photocopying as their right; and an argument began over the rights and iniquities of copyright.

Both sides have merit. The academic presses are correct to demand an end to this widespread and common practice of copyright violation — they have a duty, however unpopular this may be, to the authors and the books that they publish. But the students have a point when they say academic books are often priced out of their budget, or that it’s unreasonable to expect students to buy 20 books where only a chapter or so might be cited in each.

Copyright is not the issue, though it might be the legal battleground to this case. (If OUP and CUP win their case, the photocopying shops will close shutters in DU, and open doors elsewhere. The practice is likelier to go underground than to stop.) What the case of the photocopying shop versus the academic presses demonstrates is the failure of the Indian library system and a parallel lack of intellectual growth.

The problem that university students face in Delhi (and the rest of India) is not unique: especially for less affluent students, the cost of academic journals and books is prohibitive, and buying what would be required to cover the year’s syllabus is impractical.

For many of the world’s students, from universities in America and Oxford to places with very different college cultures – Portugal, Mexico, Belarus, Singapore – the library is their parallel university. In terms of scale, and just as important, the range of books on offer and the accessibility of the reading rooms to students, the public library or college library elsewhere has been as essential a part of the university experience as the actual classes and lectures.

The average Indian student cannot imagine what using a library elsewhere might be like: the Belarus library with its 8 million items and public concerts, the massive University of Coimbra library in Portugal with its 16th century charter – livraria pública para lentes, estudantes e quaisquer pessoas outras, the public library for lecturers, students and also everyone else – quite apart from the giant public libraries that also have space for art, sculptures, performances among the books. Even the best of DU’s libraries (or any Indian national or university library) cannot compare to any of the world’s good public libraries — it’s like comparing bullock carts and auto-rickshaws, which get the job done, to subway systems, which get the same job done on a completely different scale.

The Career Librarian blog describes what it took to build the Mexican library system — currently “the largest public library system in Latin America”. It required the enthusiastic backing of the state and the government over a decade, massive grants from foundations like the Gates Foundation. Most of all, a country that has had more than its share of problems with corruption and drug wars recognised that providing access to learning, computers and books for all their citizens is an urgent priority, not a luxury.

In the absence of a library culture – a place not just to read but to explore, not just to fetishise books but to own and examine the ideas inside them – the world of the Indian student is a shockingly narrow one. The real argument against photocopying texts isn’t, perhaps, the copyright one, which is only a legal argument.

When we read as students from those photocopied “books”, we read without an understanding of how much context and history had been lost. Often, chapters from academic studies and works floated in isolation, no link connecting one photocopied chapter and the next. No one referred to the uber-texts, the actual journals or books in which they had appeared. The “books” were focused around the core of the syllabus and their purpose was only to get students through the exams.

Arguments, essays and schools of thoughts were stapled together in those books, often without any reference to the larger world where those ideas had gestated and been born. If you were lucky enough to have good professors, a better map of thinkers might have been available; if not, there are only these ersatz books and their limited world-view, shaping the way the next generation of students will negotiate their lives.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/nilanjana-s-roy-absent-libraries-photocopied-minds/487452/

Google to alter search results under copyright pressure

New York: Big media companies won a battle in the fight to combat online piracy Friday when Google said it would alter its search algorithms to favor websites that offered legitimate copyrighted movies, music and television.

Google said that beginning next week its algorithms would take into account the number of valid copyright removal notices that websites had received. Websites with multiple, valid complaints about copyright infringement may appear lower in Google search results.

"This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily - whether it's a song previewed on NPR's music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify," Amit Singhal, Google's senior vice president of engineering, wrote in a company blog post.

The entertainment industry, which has for years pressured Google and other Internet sites to act against online piracy, applauded the move.

"We are optimistic that Google's actions will help steer consumers to the myriad legitimate ways for them to access movies and TV shows online," Michael O'Leary, a senior executive vice president for the Motion Picture Association of America, said in a statement.

Cary Sherman, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, also commended Google's move.

"Google has signaled a new willingness to value the rights of creators," he said in a statement.

But the two men expressed caution and urged Google to carry out the change with the vigor it adopted in combating pirated videos on YouTube, which Google owns.

"The devil is always in the details," O'Leary said.

Sherman added, similarly, that changing the search algorithm "is not the only approach, and of course, the details of implementation will matter."

The announcement comes just over six months after a heated battle between big media companies and technology companies, who were sparring over proposed legislation intended to crack down on pirated online content, particularly by rogue foreign websites.

In January, media companies like Viacom, Time Warner and the Walt Disney Co. backed two anti-piracy bills, one in the Senate and the other in the House of Representatives, while Internet activists and companies like Google and Facebook argued the bills would hinder Internet freedom. Buoyed by a huge online grass-roots movement, and aided by Wikipedia's going black for a day in protest, the bills quickly died.

That tension has decreased somewhat as media companies have met with Silicon Valley executives over how to solve the problem to everyone's satisfaction.

Google said it would not remove pages from copyright-infringing websites from its search engine unless it received a valid copyright removal notice from the rights' owner.

"Only copyright holders know if something is authorized, and only courts can decide if a copyright has been infringed," Singhal said.

More News at: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-08-14/news/33201272_1_anti-piracy-bills-google-search-results-online-piracy

Thomson Reuters injuncted from infringing copyright of SC cases

Thomson Reuters, the multinational information conglomerate based out of New York, along with its Indian operations – Westlaw India and Indlaw – have been restrained by an ad interim injunction by the District Judge, Lucknow from infringing the copyrights of Eastern Book Company in their law report “Supreme Court Cases”, popularly known as SCC. Despite notice, Westlaw India/ Indlaw continued to infringe through their databases, Internet websites and CD-Roms the copyrights recognised by the Supreme Court of India in Eastern Book Co Vs DB Modak, (2008) 1 SCC 1.

In Regular Suit 115 of 2012 filed against Thomson Reuters/ Westlaw India/ Indlaw under the Copyright Act, 1957, vide order dated 22-8-2012, the District Judge, Lucknow has granted an order of temporary injunction restraining Thomson Reuters/ Westlaw India/ Indlaw, their assigns and business franchisees, licensees, distributors, agents, etc., from infringing the copyrights in the law report “Supreme Court Cases” (SCC) and from selling, distributing or otherwise making available to the public, either as CD ROMs or through their websites or by any other means, copies of their databases which infringe the copyrights in the law report “Supreme Court Cases” (SCC), during the pendency of the suit.

A battery of lawyers, including Jaideep Narain Mathur, senior advocate and former Additional Advocate General, UP, appeared for Eastern Book Co.

More News at : http://www.exchange4media.com/47886_thomson-reuters-injuncted-from-infringing-copyright-of-sc-cases.html

DU students photocopying academic books is legal by Danish Raza

You just cannot produce scholars with a ban on photocopying course material. Literally!” said a miffed Lokesh, an M. Phil student at the Delhi School of Economics, popularly known as D- School, at Delhi University’s North campus. Lokesh is part of a campaign to save the D- School photocopy shop from a petition filed against it by several large publishers.

For students at the varsity, xeroxing course material from the prescribed syllabus is perfectly normal, and the spiral bound black and white pages of different sizes- each bunch weighing anywhere between 2 to 3kg have been an integral part of campus culture for generations now.

Almost every piece of required reading in every syllabus is available with the photocopy shop at a cost. Of course, nobody thought about the legality of it all. Until recently that is!

The copyright infringement petition filed by Oxford and Cambridge university press with Fancis and Tailor against DU and Rameshwari photocopy services in D-School, challenging the practice of photocopying course material, has left varsity students red faced. The petition says that photocopying allows students cheap access to otherwise expensive material.

Photocopying portions of texts for academic purposes is not illegal: Reuters

“The crackdown on photocopy is illegal. The current pricing of academic journals makes it inaccessible to substantial number of students,” said Lawrence Liang of Alternate Law Forum, a Bangalore based law firm that particularly looks at copyright issues.

About the legality of photocopying course packs, Liang said under the Indian Copyright Act, students are entitled to photocopy academic work for study and research purpose.

“Section 52 (1) says that one can reproduce any work by a teacher or a pupil in the course of instruction or as a part of questions or answers to questions. The same section allows a fair dealing with any work other than computer programs when done for private or personal use, including research,” he said.

The petition has brought under the lens, the set norms and definition of ‘mass circulation’. To make a case for violation of copyright act, publishers have challenged a decades old practice in a university, rather than targeting the sale of pirated copies of their books in grey market.

Nor is this the first time publishers have attacked a photocopy service provider to launch a discourse on copyright law. Danish Sheikh, a lawyer at the Alternative Law Forum cites examples from other countries in an article published on Kafila. According to Shiekh’s article, in 1991, eight publishers filed a lawsuit against Kinko’s Graphic Corp in USA on similar grounds. Kinko’s lost the case but it lead to the formation of a system of intermediary agencies which take care of copyright licensing of academic work.

The report also cites an instance where instructors at Georgia State University got in trouble when they posted readings online. Publishers argued that doing so was the equivalent of paper photocopying and pressed for regulations. The case resulted in the court putting a quantitative cap on the portion of a book that can be posted online.

“It is a classic strategy followed by publishers in the West so that all academic institutions get the signal and toe the line,” said Ravi Sundaram, senior fellow at Delhi based Centre for the Studies of Developing Societies.

Students said that in the current academic scenario, one cannot do away with photocopies unless there is an equally viable alternative in place.

“The photocopied compilation is essential for thousands of students from economically weaker sections who cannot afford to buy the original books. Sometimes a prescribed reading is only a chapter of a book. Does the publisher expect each student to buy the whole book to read that particular chapter?” said Lokesh.

“Since college libraries do not have sufficient copies of the designated readings, photocopying is the only viable option,” she added. As part of the campaign, students have launched a Facebook page in support of the photocopy shop, and will conduct a seminar on copyright laws in India.

Part of the problem lies with the fact that after releasing exorbitantly priced hard bound editions, a majority of publishers don’t release affordable versions of their books. On average, an Oxford book on any science topic costs Rs 700 to 800. A photocopied variant of the book costs around Rs 200.

“A course pack is not equivalent to compiling a new book or selling a pirated version. Most of these readings are authorised and prescribed readings of the universities meant for private circulation and academic purposes, and not mass produced or produced for mass commercial purposes. Departments and libraries are all an active part of this enterprise and so all of us must be sued for this, not just Rameshwari photocopy service,” said Subhadeepta Roy, PhD student in D- School.

More News at: http://www.firstpost.com/india/du-students-photocopying-academic-books-is-legal-437852.html

Copyright Amendment Act 2012 comes into effect

NEW DELHI: The Copyright (Amendment) Act 2012 passed by Parliament has come into effect declaring authors as owners of the copyright, which cannot be assigned to the producers as was the practice till now.

The act has been published in the official gazette.

It will now become mandatory for broadcasters - both radio and television - to pay royalty to the owners of the copyright each time a work of art is broadcast. It bans people from bringing out cover versions of any literary, dramatic or musical work for five years from the first recording of the original creation.

The law also seeks to remove operational difficulties and address newer issues related to the digital world.

The amendments to the Copyright Act 1958, aims at according unassignable rights to 'creative artists' such as lyricists, playback singers, music directors, film directors and dialogue writers who will be paid royalty every time the movie they have worked in is aired on a television channel.

A statutory licence is an exception under Copyright Act. It puts limits on the basic principle of the copyright law that authors and creators should have the exclusive right to control the dissemination of their work. Under statutory licensing, the royalty or remuneration for the author or creator is specified by law or such set negotiation.

For More Information See here.....

Authors win class status over Google digital books

REUTERS - A U.S. judge awarded class-action status to thousands of authors challenging Google Inc's (GOOG.O) plan to create the world's largest digital book library.

The plaintiffs have contended that Google's plan to create the library, which would have included millions of out-of-print works, amounted to "massive copyright infringement."

U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin on Thursday said it would be more efficient for the authors to sue as a group, and that forcing them to sue individually would have risked disparate results and "exponentially" raised litigation costs.

Chin was elevated in 2010 to the federal appeals court in New York, but kept jurisdiction over the Google case, which he had begun overseeing as a trial judge.

source: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/05/31/google-books-idINDEE84U0KE20120531