The Right to Education, Cultural Life, and the Limits of Copyright

In one line

The right to education and the right to take part in cultural life are Covenant rights, copyright is the main legal obstacle to both, and the answers are exceptions, licences and one treaty that solved a problem outright.

The rights

Article 26 of the Universal Declaration: everyone has the right to education; elementary education shall be free and compulsory; and education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality.

Article 13 of the Covenant: the right of everyone to education, with primary education compulsory and available free to all, secondary education generally available and accessible, and higher education equally accessible on the basis of capacity, in particular by the progressive introduction of free education.

Article 15(1)(a) of the Covenant: the right to take part in cultural life.

Article 15(1)(b): the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications.

In India, Article 21A of the Constitution, inserted by the Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002, makes free and compulsory education for children of six to fourteen a fundamental right, given effect by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.

Where copyright obstructs them

Price. A textbook priced for one market is unaffordable in another, and until 2012 the standard response of Indian students was photocopying.

Format. A printed book is inaccessible to a blind reader, and converting it is a reproduction requiring permission.

Territory. A cheap edition licensed for one country may not lawfully be imported into another under a national exhaustion rule.

Term. A work published in 1960 by an author who died in 1990 remains in copyright in India until the end of 2050, so a whole century of scholarship is unavailable without permission.

And orphan works. A work whose owner cannot be found cannot be lawfully used at all in most systems.

The three answers in copyright law

Exceptions. Section 52 of the Copyright Act lists roughly seventy acts that do not constitute infringement.

Section 52(1)(a), fair dealing with any work, other than a computer programme, for private or personal use, including research, for criticism or review, and for reporting current events and current affairs including a lecture delivered in public.

Section 52(1)(h), publication of a short passage in a collection mainly composed of non copyright matter, bona fide intended for instructional use, subject to limits.

Section 52(1)(i), the education exception: the reproduction of any work by a teacher or a pupil in the course of instruction; or as part of the questions to be answered in an examination; or in answers to such questions.

Section 52(1)(j), performance in the course of the activities of an educational institution.