In my previous post, I had written about the support for Delhi Universities from other student bodies in India and the calls from several OUP authors to the publishers to drop the suit. With opposition coming in from the authors of such allegedly infringing books themselves, it becomes increasingly apparent that this entire litigation is about the publishers. In fact, I had reproduced a famous quote that went:
“When we talk about copyright, we need to remember that we aren’t talking about authors versus readers. We’re talking about the interests of corporations versus the interests of the public” – Karen Coyle.Lawrence Liang, a contributor to the well-read blog – Kafila, posted an article this week titled ‘Academic Publishers – An Insider’s perspective: Anonymous Contributor‘. In this anonymous piece, the writer provides an insider’s view of the business of academic publishing’.
Some of the issues highlighted by the author include:
1. Publishing companies have no qualms about violating copyright when it serves their interests.
2. Publishing companies are concerned with selling their books to the syllabus review committees and not the students.
Some of the issues highlighted by the author include:
1. Publishing companies have no qualms about violating copyright when it serves their interests.
2. Publishing companies are concerned with selling their books to the syllabus review committees and not the students.
3. The authors are milked to the limit and paid peanuts.
4. Perfectly good manuscripts by Indian authors are sometimes rejected if they pertain to topics which have no “sales potential”.
For the rest of the points and the full length article, originally published on Kafila.org, please click here:
