Njabulo Bhebe, Sunday Life Reporter
RAMPANT book piracy and the advent of new technologies is continuously threatening the viability and existence of a number of players in the country’s book industry, officials have said.
Players in the book industry, which include authors, publishers and booksellers are feeling the pinch of the proliferation of pirate activities in various parts of the country.
Booksellers Association of Zimbabwe national chairperson Mr Paul Masuku said most of the booksellers have over the years suffered from unfair competition, being exerted by pirate activities.
“Most people now prefer buying reproduced textbooks from vendors that mostly operate on pavements in front of business premises in towns and cities’ CBDs (Central Business Districts) as these are cheaper than the original one being sold at bookshops,” he said.
Book piracy involves the replication of copyrighted literature through scanning, photocopying, printing and electronic duplication of books, which is now common in the major cities.
The illegal reproduction and photocopying of books, which are then sold on the streets, has given livelihoods for many but left authors and publishers wallowing in poverty.
“Book piracy is happening nationally where you have publishers publishing about 300 000 copies of a text book but only 50 000 are bought from the publishers, which means publishers are not getting their adequate royalties,” said Mr Masuku.
He said most schools, colleges and universities have since acquired heavy duty photocopying machines and this is killing the authors and stripping them of their revenue.
“Schools are also culprits in this (piracy) issue because they have gone on to purchase big photocopying machines, which means at the end of the day they only buy one copy and the rest is photocopied,” added Mr Masuku.
Booksellers Association of Zimbabwe secretary-general Mr Clemence Kunzekweguta said authorities should come up with punitive measures and heavy penalties aimed at curbing book piracy as it was impacting negatively on Government’s efforts of generating substantial revenue through tax.
“We no longer experience walk-in clients because they are being diverted by booksellers who sell books on the streets. As an industry we need protection from local authorities and Central Government. We can’t be competing with people who are not subjected to Government taxes. Failure to provide protection to the book industry will culminate in the closure of many business in the book value chain,” he said.
Mr Kunzekweguta denied that booksellers were pricing themselves out of the market saying: “when a book is produced it comes with a catalogue, there is a percentage that goes to the publisher and royalties that go to the author and 25 percent is left for the book sellers which means as booksellers we do not set prices for the textbooks.”
The advent of technology has also had a very disruptive effect on the book publishing and retailing industries.
Technology today, more than ever has a disruptive impact on publishing. The Internet, printing-on-demand and the e-book are the main drivers of change, impacting all aspects of the publishing value chain — from the way books are published (authors can go direct to the reader), distributed (electronic market places), sold (e-tailers) and read (electronic books).