The judgment establishes the principle that verbatim copying of copyrighted material, even without the author's details, constitutes infringement under the Copyright Act, 1957.

PRATHIBA M. SINGH, J.

1. The Plaintiff IGNOU has filed the present suit for permanent injunction restraining infringement of copyright, and for rendition of accounts. The case of the Plaintiff is that it provides distance education to lakhs of students across the country in several courses. One of the courses conducted by IGNOU is a Post Graduate diploma course in Journalism and Mass Communication ("PGJMC"). The course material for this course is prepared under its aegis and directions. One of the course materials is titled as "New Communication Technologies" being Course-I, Unit No.4 of Block No.3' of PGJMC. The author of the said course material is Shri V. Rama Rao. The said course material is a literary work.

2. It came to the notice of the Plaintiff that Defendant No. 1- Dominant Publishers and Distributors had published a book titled "Modern Communication Technologies" under the authorship of Defendant No. 2 Mr. Y.K. D'Souza, and that several pages of the Plaintiff's course material had been reproduced at pages 74 to 90 and pages 207 to 222 of the Defendants' book. For the sake of brevity, the course material of the Plaintiff is referred to as "the original work' and the Defendants" work is referred to as "the impugned work".

3. The Plaintiff, thus, filed the present suit seeking an injunction restraining the Defendants, as also rendition of accounts. The reliefs sought in the suit are as under:

"(1) A decree for permanent prohibitory injunction restraining the Defendants from in any manner selling/circulating/distributing the infringed book titled "Modern Communication Technologies" by Y. K. D'souza and from in any manner further reproducing the said copyright work. And appointment of a Commissioner for seizing the infringing copies of the work;

(2) An order requiring the Defendants to render accounts for profits made by them from the sale of the infringing book

(3) Grant Costs."

4. The suit was listed on 28th October, 2003 when an interim injunction was granted by this Court restraining the Defendants from circulating and distributing the infringing work. The operative portion of the said order is as under:

"Accordingly, the defendants are restrained from further selling, circulating, distributing, in any manner, infringing copies of the book titled 'Modern Communication Technologies' by Y. K. D'souza in any manner further reproducing the said instruction material in which plaintiff has copyright."

5. The Defendant No.1 filed its written statement and one of the defences taken was that the impugned work was "based on the fundamentals of electronics, which is a part of physics/science." It was further pleaded by Defendant No.1 that it was only a publisher and not the author of the book in question. Defendant No.1 also claimed that the contents, which the Plaintiff complained of, are also contained in various other books.

6. Defendant No.2 did not appear in the matter. On 14th May, 2004, the Court noticed that Defendant No.2 has refused to accept the summons. Accordingly, the suit was directed to proceed ex-parte qua Defendant No.2. The following issues were framed on 19th July, 2005.

"1. Whether the plaint discloses the cause of action against and is maintainable against defendant no.1? OPP

2. Whether the Plaintiff' is the owner of the copyright 'New Communications Technologies"? OPP

3. Whether the Defendants' work titled "Modern Communication Technologies" is not a substantial and material copy of the Plaintiffs work titled "New Communications Technologies"? OPD-1

4. Whether the defendants have infringed Plaintiffs copyright in "New Communication Technologies"? OPP

5. Relief"

7. On behalf of the Plaintiff, PW-1, Professor Shri V. Rama Rao, the author, and PW-2, Shri Ansar Husain, Deputy Registrar (Legal) have testified. On behalf of the Defendants, DW-1, Shri Amardeep Singh Saini tendered his evidence.

8. Pw-1 deposed that