Copyright Act includes all copying done for academic use if“justified by the demands of the course” #indianlaws

The Delhi High Court Division Bench in a landmark judgment has held that photocopying of copyrighted material for use “in the course of instruction” that is allowed under Section 52(1)(i) of the Copyright Act would include all copying done for academic use in a university, as long as the text being copied was “justified by the demands of the course”. The Division Bench upheld the expanded scope of interpretation of “course of instruction” under Section 52(1)(i) to include the entire academic exercise from the setting of the syllabus to the actual classroom teaching. The Bench underlined the principle that photocopying of copyrighted material was allowed under Indian Copyright law, and ruling that there could be no caps on how much of a book could be photocopied as long as it was justified by the demands of the course. However, the respondent will have to justify the creation of course packs by proving that they are in accordance with DU’s syllabus.

The Chancellor, Masters & Scholars of University of Oxford and Ors vs.Rameshwari Photocopy Services & Ors.

RFA (OS) 81/2016