A Pakistani
bookseller was recently sentenced to seven years in prison and a hefty fine for
printing and selling unauthorized copies of textbooks copyrighted by Oxford
University Press (OUP). That sort of piracy is rampant in many parts of Asia,
and publishers are trying to crack down on it.
In India,
OUP has filed a lawsuit, together with Cambridge University Press and Taylor
& Francis, against a copyshop affiliated with Delhi University for
unlawfully reproducing and selling their books. This suit, however, has spurred
a movement to legalize copying of materials for academic purposes.
The Indian
government is considering petitioning the World Intellectual Property Organisation
(WIPO) to revise its copyright rules to allow academic and research
institutions to make copies of course materials without getting permission from
or paying the copyright-holders, usually the publishers.
The
government’s position is that students and educators should have free and open
access to materials used for teaching and learning. Other countries, such as
Chile, have made the same argument.
If WIPO
agrees, the change could cost publishers a ton of revenue and raises the
question: Who then ought to pay for development of course materials?