1. INTRODUCTION
•In this paper, the term
“information for all” is pointing
at open access to all
intellectual works.
•Intellectual works are
information emanating from
scholarly research, which
Uhegbu (2007) has discovered

2. •While it is already a consensus that
ICT and Internet connections are the
medium of open access workability ,
researchers across the globe has also
identified copyright law as obstacle to
it.
•Yet, Asian countries, particularly
India, are in the top flight of open
access to information, almost
equalling Europe and American

3. •Therefore, this paper attempts to find
out how the two variables (copyright
and open access) can help to promote
national development of Nigeria, with
reference to India’s experience .

4. THE CONCEPT OF INFORMATION
FOR ALL
• The National Association of
Library and Information
Science Students motto has it
that information is power.
•Uhegbu (2007) asserts that
information is a vehicle of
national development.

5. •Das (2008) posits that free flow of
information is a fundamental
principle for bridging the knowledge
gaps between privileged and under-
privileged communities.
•Universal access to information and
knowledge is UNESCO's (
www.unesco.org) overall mandate to
promote the free flow of information
by word and by image and thus to

6. •The concept of information for all
therefore lies on building a sustainable
Information society.
•In building this society, the World
Submit on the Information Society
(WSIS) declares that certain principles
and actions must come to play.
•Strengthening libraries, archives,
museums, cultural collections and
other community based access points

7. •ICT adoption, improvement of
public domain information and
usage, free-of-charge access to
information, building strategies and
fostering worldwide cooperation
between libraries are the actions.

8. A BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF INDIA:
RATIONALE FOR COMPARISON
WITH NIGERIA
•India, a south Asian country, is a
developing nation like Nigeria.
•Economists classify India as a third
world country, as Nigeria is also
grouped.
•Both countries were colonized by

9. •India is the second most populous
country of the world (Rosenberg, 2010).
She has 1.19 billion people, about
17.31% of world’s population, with a
literacy rate of 65.38%, improved within
the last 9 years.
•Today, among developing countries of
the world, India is the most prominent
partner in successful open access and
digital library initiatives. So, how did she

10. COPYRIGHT LAW: AN OVERVIEW
•Copyright law is not a new term all
over the world.
•It is a universal concept and a form of
protection provided by the laws of any
sovereign state. It is a legislation
backing right for creation of works.

11. •Not only does copyright holders have
the exclusive right to reproduce an
intellectual work and the right to make
it accessible to the public, they also
have the exploitation and moral rights
as benefits.

12. A Comparison of terms in Nigerian
and Indian Copyright Laws
•Copyright law of the countries refer to
literary, artistic and cinematograph
works, and other things that may be
categorized under them.
•The copyright law of the countries
agree that copyright in a work is not a
protection of the idea, rather is a
protection for the labour and skills put

13. •The conditions of infringement are the
same, wherein every form of
substantial coping, aiding copying,
publishing, or otherwise, by manual or
electronic means, without the
permission of the owner, Registrar of
copyright or without corresponding
exception principles, infringe the law
and is punishable by provisos set out in
the law.

14. •The Nigerian and Indian copyright
laws allow the assignment of a non-
exclusive right to anyone in writing,
oral or inferred from conduct,
permitting the assignee to own or use
a copyrighted work.
•Exceptions to copyrighted works in
the two countries allow fair dealing.

15. OPEN ACCESS INITIATIVE
•open access is defined as an effort to
make research articles in all academic
fields freely available on the internet.
•Hoorn and Graaf (2006) assert that
open access allows reuse: the right of
any one to reproduce and redirect the
original article without the publisher’s
consent.

16. •open access can be achieved through
self archiving (institutional repository)
and open access publishing (especially
through e-journals containing research
findings of academics).
•Open access accelerates research,
enrich education, share the learning of
the rich with the poor, lay the
foundations for uniting humankind in a
common intellectual exchange and
quest for knowledge, and leads to
unprecedented development of a

17. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
COPYRIGHT AND OPEN ACCESS
•From the foregoing, it is clear that
open access is only realizable through
digitization.
•Sveum (2008) evaluated the position
of a typical copyright law on the digital
nature of libraries and discovers that
laws like Digital Right Management
(DRM) and Digital Millennium

18. •Researchers around the globe have
observed that there is no smooth
rapport between copyright law and
open access project (ICDL Bulletin,
2010).
•Top library and information
professionals in Nigeria agree that
copyright law hinder the success of
open access to information (
http://www.nulib.net/).

19. WHAT HAS INDIA DONE?
•India conceived an unprecedented
interest to develope her society.
•The government realized development
lies in transforming the education and
knowledge base of the country .
•The government set up commissions
and committees with a mandate to
provide modalities to improve the
knowledge base of the nation.

20. •National Knowledge Commission of
India (established in 2005) ,University
Grants Commission (UGC) and Centre
for Knowledge Society (CKS) are some
of the organs set.
•The principles and plans of action on
access to information as given by The
World Submit on Information Society
(WSIS) were adopted (Das, 2008: pp 3,

21. Open access to all government
funded scholarly research through
electronic journal publishing and
digital libraries.
The use of Open Educational
Resources (OER) in Schools and
Institutions.
The transformation of all libraries in
India to digital.
The installation of high speed
bandwidth (broadband) in Institutions.

22. •Indian government adopted these
recommendations.
•The government mandated her
institutions to set up local policies for
creating and sustaining open access t o
all government funded research and
works in the public domain through
digital repositories /archives.

23. •These include Student’s theses and
scholars private research findings.
But copyright law cried out!
•So, not disputing the legality of the
law, Indian scholars and various
commission’s think-tank observed the
followings as the way out :

24. Scholars and researchers agreed to
forfeit their exploitation rights (returns
on sales) and seek only moral rights (the
author’s right to be cited and
acknowledged as owner of a work) .
Authors retain copyright through
“author’s addendum” and share their
work with open access licenses.
Digitalization of libraries , for wider
dissemination of information, has to
continue on the principle of fair dealing,

25. •Today in India, free access to
intellectual information of all kinds
is common.
•Researchers within and outside
India, with internet connection, can
access many Indian interoperable
digital libraries.
•Up to 60% of about four hundred
institutions (universities and
research institutes) in India either

26. • Above all, the world’s registry of
countries with increasing number of
open access repositories has India on
the 11th
position, with 46 institutional
repositories.
• Das (2008) has a comprehensive list
of open access and digital library
projects, both in Asia at large and
India in particular.

27. OVERVIEW OF OPEN ACCESS IN
NIGERIA
•Utulu and Bolarinwa (2009) studied
Nigerian academics adoption of open
access and reveal that :
There is insignificant use of open
access and
Few academics who adopted open
access are more from the science
faculty than from the humanities.

28. •Although Victoria Okojie, former
president of the Nigerian Library
Association, in a workshop in Zaria in
2008, agreed that open access success
lies on digital archives and
repositories, only Covenant
University, University of Jos and
University of Nigeria Nsukka, as at
date of this research, are the only
Nigerian Universities on the world’s

29. Recommended Guidelines for
Nigeria
•Librarians should agree unanimously on
open access publishing of all research
information and the creation of
institutional repositories.
•A committee should be formed.
•A statement of advocacy should be
written, demanding for creation of digital
repositories and archives in all higher

30. •The interest of NUC and the Minister
of Education should be gotten by all
good means.
• A letter, to back up the proposals of
institutional librarians, should be
written to chief Executives of higher
institutions and research
establishment in Nigeria.
•As Opara (2011b) observes, civil
societies like ASUU, NUT, NUJ, NLC

31. •Non-profit organizations like T.Y.
Danjuma’s foundation, Google, SHELL,
MTN, etc. can also be contacted.
Against fear of copyright, Librarians
should:
 promote author’s use of the slogan:
“some rights reserved” rather than “all
rights reserved”.
Ask scholars to retain copyright of their
works and share it with creative
commons licenses or transfer only a
portion to their publishers rather than

32. Advocate for intellectual property
rights for academic and research
institutions to enable libraries share
copyright with authors in their
institutions, so as to grant open access to
special works like student’s theses.
Digitize already existing holdings of
libraries on the legal basis of digital
preservation rights (DMCA section 108),
public domain privileges, fair dealing
principles, and first sale doctrine.

33. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
•Although copyright legality is still
alive globally, open access to research
information is on the increase through
digital libraries, institutional
repositories and e-journals.
•If Information professionals like: S.
Arunachalam, T. B. Rajashekar, with
few others could start open access

34. THANK YOU
AUTHOR’S ADDENDUM
Sir/Ma,
Kindly note that this work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 license and if found
publishable in your journal, the peer-reviewed copy shall
still retain this license, which permits uploading of this
article in author’s institution repository and other self
archiving channels.