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| Rameshwari Photocopy Services |
On 14 August 2012, the premises of the Rameshwari Photocopy Services were raided by order of the Delhi High Court, following a petition for copyright infringement that Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Taylor & Francis had filed against the photocopy shop and Delhi University. Rameshwari had been tasked by Delhi School of Economics to produce course packs consisting of photocopied excerpts from copyright-protected works, sold to students at 0.40 rupee per page, making these teaching materials affordable to Indian students of modest means.
The case concerned the scope of copyright exception for education under Section 52(1)(i)(i) of the Indian Copyright Act allowing ‘reproduction of any work… by a teacher or a pupil in the course of instruction.’ The publishers insisted on a narrow interpretation of this exception, that would have severely limited the capacity to reproduce and access teaching materials. Delhi University - supported by the Society for Promoting Educational Access and Knowledge, and the Association of Students for Equitable Access to Knowledge - argued that such an interpretation risked limiting the constitutional right to education and the attendant right of access to knowledge, thus deepening inequalities in a society riven by divisions of caste and class, and a global system of education characterised by huge economic disparities between academic communities.
In an unprecedented decision four years later, the Delhi high court ruled against the Publishers: against the tendency to interpret copyright as a right of exclusion, benefiting the private interest of entities mostly located in the Global North, and in favour of the public right of equitable access to knowledge. This has global implications.
The legal case sparked massive protests by students and academics who took to the streets across India and engaged in acts of civil disobedience.