HC impleads students in copyright case

In an ongoing case in the Delhi high court, where a consortium of publishers, namely Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Taylor & Francis Group, filed a suit against Delhi University and M/S Rameshwari Photocopier (the licensed photocopy shop at Delhi School of Economics) alleging copyright infringement, the plea for impleadment filed by the Association of Students for Equitable Access to Knowledge (ASEAK) in the lawsuit was accepted by the court recently. The publishers had claimed that photocopying of prescribed study material constituted an infringement of their copyright and claimed damages in excess of `60 lakhs. To the objections raised by the publishers’ lawyer to ASEAK’s impleadment, the high court said, “that the presence of the applicant is necessary and proper for adjudication of the present suit”. In October 2012, the HC had passed an interim injunction staying further photocopying of “course packs” which are essentially compilation of prescribed reading materials. The Indian Copyright Act 1957 makes for exceptions to copyright infringement in Section 52, Article (h) of the Act, which states: “(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” does not amount to an infringement of copyright. ASEAK will seek a revocation of the interim order and will argue to defend the educational exception in favour of the interests of the student community.