 "Dharampal Singh, the owner of Rameshwari Photocopy Service")
Bhaiyya, ho gaya?" - the rasping cry shatters the placid lull outside the Rameshwari Photocopy Service at the Delhi School of Economics (DSE). It is late afternoon on an uncomfortably warm September day, and Akanksha Sood has just been let off from an exhausting microeconomics lecture.
Along the snake-like cement path that leads to the shop is the usual thick crowd of people. Students and professors sit under large trees discussing university politics as the two attendants at the wildly popular J P Tea Stall hastily pour out glasses of tea and masala coke - the lazy calm that follows a long university day is perceptible.
Cutting her way through a small group of people that is blocking the shop entrance, which is made up of a wooden door with the words "DSE Photocopy Shop" inscribed on it, Sood barges inside and asks an employee if the notes that she had given for photocopying are done. A middle-aged man hurriedly hands her a chunky bundle of sheets, before pointing in the direction of the owner, who then collects the payment - of Rs 150.
Over the next 30 minutes, more than 50 students saunter in and out of the shop. While most come here to get study material photocopied, some pay a visit to buy "course packs" - readings taken from different books and then compiled here to adhere to a particular course's curriculum.
This is exactly how Dharampal Singh, the owner of the shop for 20 years, remembers it - his tiny kiosk with four photocopy machines teeming with expectant students.
On September 16, the Delhi High Court dismissed a plea filed by three international publishers against the sale of photocopied books and material at the University of Delhi. The verdict is likely to drastically alter the way copyright laws are viewed in the country.
The thinly-mustachioed Singh, who is dressed in a sky blue shirt and grey trousers, admits that the last four years haven't been easy. But he is quick to add that now he can breathe easy. "There was a time when I wasn't sure if I could continue with this business," says Singh.
On October 17, 2012, the Delhi High Court had passed an order restricting Rameshwari from selling photocopied material taken from the three publishers' books. What followed was an onerous legal battle that had all the makings of a David versus Goliath duel - a fight, which Singh confesses, he wasn't very confident of initially winning. "Going up against the might of these publishers was never going to be easy."
Students at the university put down the widespread use of photocopied material - almost everyone uses it - to two reasons: the unavailability of certain books and the astronomical prices of the others. "They are so expensive that you just cannot buy them. Moreover, what we need is only a couple of chapters from a particular book. You can't be shelling out Rs 5,000 for a few pages," says Prashant David Mills, a first-year MBA student at DSE.
Dharampal Singh, the owner of Rameshwari Photocopy Service
At the market near Patel Chest Institute in Hudson Lane, this is the very reason why photocopy shops have mushroomed in the last few years. While most of them don't sell course packs, they happily photocopy entire books for you. Undeterred by the order issued against Rameshwari in 2012, shopkeepers here say they've never faced any problem.
The problem that Delhi University is struggling to confront is an age-old one: too many students crunched into a system afflicted with astoundingly scarce resources. Even the Ratan Tata Library at DSE - easily the most well-stocked library on campus - for instance, houses only a few copies of these expensive books. In some cases, that number is limited to just one. As Sood, a second-year MA Economics student, explains, "Photocopying is now embedded deep in the fabric of the university. There is no escaping it."
Apoorva Gautam is half-an-hour behind schedule for our meeting at the DSE canteen, but is quick to apologise with a smile. Twenty-five-year-old Gautam, a former master's student of sociology at DSE, is the president of the Association of Students' for Equitable Access to Knowledge (ASEAK), the student organisation that played a stellar role in propelling Singh and his photocopy shop to victory in court.
Soon after the matter went to court, the diminutive Gautam and a group of students got together in their quest to make knowledge, as she describes it, more open-ended. "Education is a public good. The publishers, though, treat it as a revenue stream that can be exploited endlessly. This judgment is hugely significant in that respect," she says.
The judgment, which runs into 94 pages, notes that Section 52(1) (i) of the Copyright Act can cover the acts of photocopying and the creation of course packs for students. "Copyright, especially in literary works, is thus not an inevitable, divine, or natural right that confers on authors the absolute ownership of their creations," the court observed.
It had earlier stated that copyright is a statutory right and according to the provisions of the Copyright Act, photocopying original literary work is an exclusive right of the owner, and the making of photocopies would constitute infringement under Section 51.
"From the educational standpoint of affordability and accessibility, this is massive," says Shamnad Basheer, intellectual property rights expert and someone who helped form SPEAK (Students for Equitable Access to Knowledge), a cohort of academics and legal experts that helped mobilise the voice of students in court. "Our stand was based on empirical research. So many of these books just weren't available at affordable prices."
Publishers, however, contend that academic books cannot be treated as charity. "A publishing house gives an author the platform. If someone keeps duplicating your work, how will you make money?" asks a representative of a leading Indian publishing house, requesting anonymity.
Gautam, on the other hand, argues that the value publishers add to books is almost farcical. "The research done by students and professors is paid for by the university. All they do is just print it," says Gautam. "We have authors here who cannot buy their own books because they're so expensive."
Basheer feels that publishers would be foolish to make students their adversaries. With self-publishing often a financially unviable option, Gautam says many academicians are putting their stuff out online for students to read.
Despite repeated attempts, the three international publishers involved in the case couldn't be contacted for a response.
The students' glee aside, the repercussions of the court order are firmly reverberating elsewhere on the campus. Bookland, located bang in the middle of a long stretch dotted by fast food joints in Kamala Nagar, is rapidly running out of business. The pavement that leads up to the bookstore is narrow and wading through the crowd a terrible hassle.
Rakesh Rastogi, the bespectacled owner of the store, asks an employee to man the counter as he chats with me. "We have stopped keeping expensive books. Nobody buys them," he rues. "And, now the students are even getting the cheaper ones photocopied. The situation is bleak."
Over at the International Book House, a few paces to the left of Bookland, Swaran Singh says that publishers will soon start coming out with only a few select books. Slumping back in his chair, the turbaned Singh explains: "For a Rs 300 book, a publisher initially comes out with 1,100 copies, which costs him Rs 5,00,000. The problem is, now, so many books just don't sell."
Perhaps what is more startling is students getting photocopies made of books that cost as little as Rs 60. Singh says that a booklet of previous years' question papers, which comes for no more than Rs 80, is bought by a group of friends and then shared through photocopying. "This verdict is good for the students, but nobody has thought about us."
Rastogi's damning confirmation arrives in the shape of a walk around the market. "When I opened this shop in 1968, there were 16 other bookstores here. Now, there are only two. What does that tell you?"
Even as students and professors rejoice, the High Court order has left many disappointed. All stakeholders singularly agree that knowledge should be made more accessible, but the right way forward - keeping in mind the interest of all involved - is something that few have clarity on.
