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posted by CoolHand on Monday March 13 2017, @11:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the information-wants-to-be-free dept.

Back in September last year, Mike wrote about the remarkable court ruling in India that copyright is not inevitable, divine or a natural right. As we have been reporting since 2013, the case in question was brought by three big Western publishers against Delhi University and a photocopy shop over "course packs" -- bound collections of photocopied extracts from books and journals that are sold more cheaply than the sources. Although the High Court of Delhi ruled that photocopying textbooks in this way is fair use, that was not necessarily the end of the story: the publishers might have appealed to India's Supreme Court. But as the Spicy IP site reports, they didn't:

In a stunning development, OUP, CUP and Taylor & Francis just withdrew their copyright law suit filed against Delhi University (and its photocopier, Rameshwari) 5 years ago! They indicated this to the Delhi high court in a short and succinct filing made this morning.

This withdrawal brings to an end one of the most hotly contested IP battles ever, pitting as it did multinational publishers against academics and students. The law suit was filed as far back as 2012 and it dragged on for 5 long years!

[...] That's an important point. So often it seems that copyright only ever gets longer and stronger, with the public always on the losing side. The latest news from India shows that very occasionally, it's the public that wins.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170309/07340536878/photocopying-textbooks-is-fair-use-india-western-publishers-withdraw-copyright-suit-against-delhi-university.shtml


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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by ese002 on Tuesday March 14 2017, @04:27AM

    by ese002 (5306) on Tuesday March 14 2017, @04:27AM (#478761)

    Instead of making college free make the textbooks free. When I went to college (early 80s) the textbooks were easily twice the cost of tuition.

    You will be happy to learn that this problem has been resolved. Tuition is now much more expensive than books. Books aren't cheaper though.

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