IGNOU Vs. DOMINANT PUBLISHERS AND DISTRIBUTORS

JUDGEMENT

(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: