DU students protest against publishers at Delhi Book Fair

A PhD student in Political Science,Naveen Chander,said: “We distributed pamphlets outside the Cambridge University Press stall. The stall owners asked the guards to evict us. We tried to reason it out with them and were joined by people who had come to visit the fair.”

Vasundhara Jairat,a PhD student in Sociology,said: “During the commotion,one Cambridge University Press stall attendant spoke to us rudely. A group of students from Hindu College supported us. A doctor present at the stall told the officials that it was not possible for medical students to buy such expensive books.”

According to the pamphlet distributed by the students,“the High Court case is an attack by profit-driven global players against students across the country. We believe their business model is fewer copies at higher prices”.

“The royalties given to authors of these books are abysmal.

These companies defend their high prices by talking about authors and their royalties. However,when we spoke to the authors,most of them had no problems with the fact that photocopies of portions of their book are read by many students. Hence,the publishers’ claim is bogus,” Chander said.

Apart from the campaign on Facebook,a petition on change.org is also doing the rounds,urging publishers to withdraw the case filed against the shop.

Students said “photocopying for educational purposes” is not

illegal.

“Section 52(1)(h) of the Indian Copyright Act safeguards the interests of students by legitimising reproduction of a literary work by a teacher or pupil in the course of instruction and for private and personal use,including research,” the pamphlet said.

“We are planning to ask authors of books published by these three houses to join this movement. A seminar attended by intellectual property rights activist Lawrence Liang was also organised in the university a few days ago,” Naveen Chander said.