UNI) Indian publishers aired objections to an amendment proposed in a 53-year-old copyright law, asserting that if it goes through, the prices of text books 'will jump tenfold.' 'With the proposed amendment,' spokesmen for two leading groups of publishers, told journalists, 'the student community would be hit the hardest.' The Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2010 to amend the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 'will have adverse impact on the publishing industry,' said the spokesmen for the Association of Publishers in India and the Federation of Indian Publishers.
The groups supported by authors Gurcharan Das, Jaishree Misra and William Dalrymple announced they are putting together a petition against the amendment to be submitted to the authorities.
The 'parallel import' amendment, as it is commonly called, seeks to insert in the Act a new proviso: 'a copy of a work published in any country outside India with the permission of the author of the work and imported from that country into India shall not be deemed to be an infringing copy.' Despite repeated questions at the news conference, the publishing spokesmen appeared at a loss as to the reason for the proposed amendment.
The amendment proposed by the Human Resource Developed Ministry cleared the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee chaired by Oscar Fernandes in November 2010.
But publishing industry representatives at the news conference said the proposed amendment was a lose-lose-lose move for all three-- readers, writers and publishers.
They said the globally accepted business model was the territorial division of rights wherein publishers have the right to publish territory-or-country-specific editions-- especially academic books-- benefiting authors and readers.
‘’It is feared,’’ API president Sanjiv Goswami told journalists that ‘’if the proposed amendment is accepted, academic book prices will jump tenfold.’’ He explained that amending the law might open the way to marketing low-priced editions in countries where they sell at prices far higher than in India, removing incentive for making them available in India.
FIP president Anand Bhushan said the amendment would put not just publishers, but also authors at a disadvantage by lowering readerships and 'seriously impact on new Indian writers getting published.' Asked afterwards to clarify the need for a proposal with such possible ramifications, an HRD Ministry official said, 'all these issues have been considered by the Standing Committee' before it cleared the amendment.
The Act has been amended five times-- once each in the years 1983, 1984, 1992, 1994 and 1999, the last having been 'minor changes' to comply with obligations under the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.
The Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010 was introduced in Rajya Sabha on April 19, 2010 and referred to the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development on April 23, 2010 for examination and report within two months.
It seeks to amend the Act for clarity, removing operational difficulties and addressing newer issues arisen in the context of digital technologies and the Internet.
The Bill also seeks to bring the provisions of the Act in conformity with the two World Intellectual Property Organisation Internet Treaties-- WIPO Copyright Treaty and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty 'to the extent considered necessary and desirable.' Both WCT and WPPT were negotiated in 1996 to address challenges posed to the protection of copyrights and related rights by digital technology, particularly in disseminating protected material over digital networks such as Internet.
The WCT deals with the protection for the authors of literary and artistic works such as writings, computer programmes, original databases, musical works, audio-visual works, works of the fine art and photographs.
