Publishers step up fight against piracy

Legal penalties against pirated and unauthorised publications had not stifled the practice, as it remained widespread in Viet Nam, speakers at a publishers’ conference said yesterday.

Organised by the Education Publishing House, the conference brought together publishers, printers, distributors and law-enforcement officials as well as publication authorities to discuss ways to prevent piracy.

“More than 90 per cent of books for sale along sidewalks in HCM City are illegally printed without permission or licences,” said Nguyen Sy Sau, head of the Youth Publishing House’s Editing and Licensing Department.

“They have been out there for many years, not being checked in any way by law-enforcement officials,” he said, adding that copying whole or parts of books, which is a copyright violation, was common on campuses.

Even publishing houses have granted publishing licences to their partners to print some books without being aware that the partners had not been granted the copyright.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong, director of the General Publishing House’s HCM City Branch, attributed the mistake to publishing houses’ carelessness and lax management.

“They don’t require evidence of copyright,” she said.

Sau of Youth Publishing House identified two kinds of unauthorised publications: massive copying of best-selling books or re-publishing of books with changes in title, layout and design, with illegally obtained licences from publishing houses.

Sau said his publishing house was “tired of detecting and fighting fake copies” and that the house had to learn to “live with the flood”.

“We spent hundreds of millions of dong (thousands of dollars) to track a huge amount of illegal copies, but the violators were fined just several million dong,” he said.

Better printing technologies, the easy availability of printing houses, weak penalties and big discounts were identified as the main causes that helped unauthorised prints flourish.

Today fake copies are much clearer and look like real ones compared to the past when fake copies were usually of poor quality, according to Nguyen Minh Khang, deputy director of the Education Publishing House.

Hung said most buyers of illegal copies were students who could not afford expensive books and preferred big discounts.

“Huge commissions and discounts are very tempting to both sellers and buyers, stimulating trading of unauthorised copies,” he said.

Khang of Education Publishing House said the increasing number of printing houses across the country had made it hard for the authorities to detect unauthorised printing.

Improving new printing technologies or cutting back on input costs have not done much to fend off illegal printing, according to the chairman of the Viet Nam Printing Association, Nguyen Van Giau.

Representatives at the conference unanimously called for tougher penalties against illegal publications, given that the current rules are so weak violators can ignore them.

“Serious violations should be treated as criminal cases, instead of just cases where fines are imposed,” said General Publishing House’s Huong.

Youth Publishing House’s Sau petitioned publishing authorities to develop a more secure legal framework for publishers in the country.

“The Ministry of Information and Communications and the Printing Association should work together to recommend to the National Assembly amendments to the publishing laws, in the direction of increasing penalties against violations,” he said.

“They can earn profits up to billions of dong, while being fined only VND500 million ($27,000) at most, if busted,” he complained.

Sau also asked the Government to give more tax incentives to the publishing industry so that books could be sold at the best prices possible.

He asked all publishers to join forces in the battle and committed not to work with any printing houses that have a record of illegal printing.

“We should establish an association for fighting piracy in publications,” he suggested.

He said that students should be taught that buying illegal copies was equivalent to intellectual theft.

Hung said that publication piracy should be seen not only from an economic perspective, but also viewed as a cultural crime that would undermine the acquisition of knowledge of future generations. — VNS

Tags: Vietnam publishing industry