
Copyright is not a divine right - colinprince
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Copyright-is-not-a-divine-right-Delhi-HC/articleshow/54372014.cms
======
flashman
In Australia, we had a High Court case in the 1970s[1] in which a university
library was declared to have authorised copyright infringement by providing
coin-operated photocopiers and taking no steps to prevent infringements.

To have a university openly producing and selling photocopies is (pardon the
pun) a completely foreign idea to me. Does the university merely cover its
costs (education motive) or make a profit on the copies (commercial motive)?

I'd be willing to make an uninformed bet that most of the photocopied books
have non-Indian authors, and that pressure to change the laws will start when
Indian authors start having their works copied – the same way that America
routinely ignored piracy of foreign authors until the likes of Mark Twain
began complaining about Canadian piracies of their own works.[2]

[1][http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1975/26.html](http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1975/26.html)
[2][http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva74.html](http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva74.html)

~~~
tygorius
Well, it's restricted to educational uses, so I don't anticipate a lot of
pressure from Indian textbook authors on this one. The specific case seems to
stem from professors suggesting students read various sections of different
texts and the copying service preparing collections of those reading
assignments for various courses.

It's a broader interpretation than the US version of Fair Use, obviously, but
it seems to me the High Court judge had a good point that copyright must serve
the public's interests as well as the publisher's.

~~~
flashman
> The specific case seems to stem from professors suggesting students read
> various sections of different texts and the copying service preparing
> collections of those reading assignments for various courses.

Actually, in Australia universities are permitted to do the same thing, as
long as it's not the whole book (e.g. a chapter relevant to the week's
lecture). So that seems more understandable than photocopying entire books.

