Top publishing associations supported by well-known authors launched a signature campaign for review of the proposed amendments in the Copyright Amendment Bill (2010) which makes it easier to import books to the country.
Gurcharan Das, Jaishree Mishra and William Dalrymple and publishers represented by Association of Publishers in India (API) and Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP) expressed their concerns on the issue.
Noted author Gurcharan Das stated that the government should not push for the proposed amendments to the act which would open the market for import of books published in other countries. “The amendments will make the Indian market vulnerable to dumping from bigger publishing countries like the US and the UK,” he added.
He found support from author William Dalrymple who stated that the literary culture was like a fragile ecosystem. “The country has witnessed a phenomenal increase in its literary scene with writing becoming a economically viable profession. But the proposed amendments in the law will kill the Indian publishing industry,” he stated. He stated that the publishing community and the authors will try to get their point across to Union human resource development minister Kapil Sibal so that the views of the industry are also kept in mind.
Mr Das stated that though the amendments have been proposed keeping in mind vast industries like music, film and print the views of print seem to have been not taken into mind.