The photocopy issue at Delhi University has been solved, with Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Taylor & Francis—all those who had complained about the violation of Intellectual Property—withdrawing their cases from the Delhi High Court against the concerned photocopy shop. This was announced in a joint press release by the three publishers on March 9.
A statement issued by them says: “We have taken a considered decision not to pursue the Delhi University Photocopy shop case further in the courts and will today be filing an application with the Delhi High Court to withdraw as plaintiffs. In addition, we will not be submitting an appeal to the Supreme Court of India, following the Delhi High Court Division Bench appeal decision of 09 December, 2016.
“We continue to stand by our principles stated throughout this case. We support and seek to enable equitable access to knowledge for students and we understand and endorse the important role that course packs play in the education of students. We support our authors in helping them produce materials of the highest standard and we maintain that copyright law plays an important part in balancing the interests of those creating, curating, and disseminating learning materials with those requiring access to them.
“We look forward to working even more closely with academic institutions, teachers and students to understand and address their needs, while also ensuring that all those who contribute to and improve India’s education system—including authors and publishers—continue to do so for the long term.”
The issue had become a hot topic when students were prevented from photocopying expensive textbooks from the shop for their courses. While for the students, the main consideration was price, the publishers said this photocopying resulted in copyright violation.
—By India Legal Bureau