Book Piracy Research Articles

Reducing Book Piracy: The Role of the Higher Education Sector

The objective of this paper was to address the rampant infringement of intellectual property rights in Zimbabwe, with respect to the literary industry. The paper identifies the various forms of book piracy in Zimbabwe, their causes and effects and strategies to deal with the scourge with specific emphasis on the contribution of the higher and tertiary sector. The methodology included observation, analysis of documentary evidence, and in-depth interviews with key informants inclusive of government officials, higher and tertiary education officials, Zimbabwe International Book Fair leadership, publishers, authors, parents, students and book vendors. The findings revealed that unlawful reprography and abuse of publication rights are the main forms of book piracy in Zimbabwe. The causes of book piracy were identified as book scarcity, poverty and ignorance of the copyright laws. The impact of book piracy was positive as far as the beneficiaries were concerned but had debilitating effects to the copyright owners. The paper suggests ways in which the higher education sector could contribute to the reduction of book piracy initially by their academic staff and students and ultimately by the whole nation through ripple effects. These ways include awareness, advocacy and enforcement of copyright laws; revitalization of libraries as well as encouraging curriculum inclusiveness. The paper contributes to the on-going anti-book piracy debate and provides useful information to Librarians, higher education institutions as well as policy makers.

Scanner tags, comic book piracy and participatory culture

To learn more about the motivations of individuals who scan and distribute comic books, this study reports findings from a content analysis of 389 scanner tags extracted from comic books posted on the torrent network Pirate Bay. Coded according to four categories linked to the literature on comic fandom and participatory culture, tags were analyzed in terms of recognition, aesthetic style, textual signifiers, and visual signifiers. Though comic book pirates seek recognition from their peers, they are primarily concerned with focusing attention on their favorite fandoms. This study challenges the view that digital piracy should necessarily be interpreted as a form of cultural resistance. The phenomenon of comic book scanning makes more sense when understood as a manifestation of fan behavior. Comic book pirates are more fans than revolutionaries.

Book Piracy in Nigeria: Issues and Strategies

Book piracy is an illegal and illegitimate reproduction of other people's intellectual property for economic reasons without prior consent or authorization. This paper examines the intricate dimension of book piracy in the Nigerian Publishing Industry. It notes the dangers the trend portends to qualitative education and scholarship in general. The paper identifies the different forms of book piracy as: local reproduction of fast moving titles using newsprint or poor textured paper, abuse of publication rights, hi-tech reproduction overseas, circumventing the e-book version, illegal reprography, unauthorized excessive production by printers, and translation without permission. Some of the causes of book piracy are poverty, book scarcity, ignorance of the copyright laws by the public and the uncooperative attitude of some countries in endorsing international treaties on intellectual property rights. The paper recommends the following as panacea to stemming the tide of the menace: cost reduction strategies, national book policy and commissioning of local authorship, awareness and enforcement of copyright laws, revitalization of libraries, sanctions on countries showing complacency towards piracy, special algorithms to detect illegal downloads, security printing devices and moral suasion.

Upright Piracy: Understanding the Lack of Copyright for Journalism in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Upright PiracyUnderstanding the Lack of Copyright for Journalism in Eighteenth-Century Britain Will Slauter (bio) When and how did written reports of current events—in other words, journalism—become recognized as a form of literary property? In Great Britain, the 1710 Act of Anne provided authors and booksellers with an exclusive right, during a limited period of time, to print, distribute, and sell their books.1 Yet the act made no mention of newspapers or other periodicals, whose status as literary property remained ambiguous well into the nineteenth century. The Literary Copyright Act of 1842 extended protection to “any Encyclopedia, Review, Magazine, Periodical Work, or Work published in a series of Books or Parts,” but disagreement about the legal status of newspapers, not to mention the individual articles they contained, persisted. In the 1830s and 1850s, when the stamp tax on newspapers was lowered and then abolished, the managers of established London dailies feared a flood of cheap papers that would copy news acquired by them at great expense. They lobbied in vain for a special copyright that would prohibit the unauthorized reprinting of news reports for a certain number of hours after initial publication.2 The Copyright Act of 1911 offered explicit protection for newspapers, but by that time copyright was generally understood to cover only the precise language of articles, not the underlying factual details that many publishers now sought to protect.3 Because the Act of Anne did not mention serial publications, and because most court cases and discussions of literary property in the eighteenth century concerned the reprinting of books, it may be tempting to assume that periodical writings simply were not covered by the statute and that writers, publishers, and readers at the time did not view them as literary property in the same way as books.4 Evidence from the register of the Company of Stationers (the official record of copyright during the eighteenth century) and from the periodicals themselves suggests a more complicated story. Rather than simply assuming that contemporaries applied different standards depending upon the material form of publications (bound books versus single [End Page 34] sheets) or the content of those publications (learned treatises versus accounts of recent events), it is necessary to study what they attempted to claim as literary property and how they attempted to do so. In his book Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates, Adrian Johns argues convincingly for a broader history of piracy that considers the evolution of moral codes and cultural practices as well as developments in legislation and case law. Johns shows that complaints about piracy predated modern copyright laws, but also that the kinds of activity denounced as piracy have changed over time.5 In the case of eighteenth-century journalism, evidence for contemporary interest in the problem of piracy appears not so much in the formal discussions of literary property usually studied by copyright scholars (petitions to Parliament, court cases, and pamphlets) as in the occasional comments of writers, printers, booksellers, and readers. Such comments tend to be more frequent and more elaborate during periods of increased competition, whether caused by changes in legislation or innovations in publishing practice. This article highlights two such periods: the 1710s, a period of intense competition among the publishers of weekly essay sheets, and the 1730s, when the appearance of monthly magazines led to the first sustained discussion of whether periodical writings could constitute a form of literary property. The debate in the 1730s did not lead to any new legislation, but it did inspire changes in publishing strategy. Moreover, the fact that support for a copyright in journalistic texts was so limited for the rest of the eighteenth century demands explanation. At a time when literary property was the subject of numerous court battles and sustained debate in the press, why did so few people openly discuss a potential copyright in newspaper and magazine writings? What about these writings disqualified them from literary property in eighteenth-century Britain? In order to better understand the ambiguous status of periodical writings under the Act of Anne, it is important to consider the extent to which this act differed from previous regulations and the...

Towards a Digital Spine: The Technological Methods that UK and US Publishers are Using to Tackle the Growing Challenge of E-Book Piracy

Despite electronic book (e-book) piracy being viewed by many rightsholders as the greatest contemporary challenge to the publishing industry, there is little research evaluating different anti-piracy methods, and explaining how they work. This paper explores the technological methods that United Kingdom and United States publishers, and their representative bodies, are using to tackle the growing challenge of e-book piracy. Through interviews with industry experts (including consultants, publishers and representatives) and publishing case studies, this paper brings together knowledge previously published and considered separately. The systems considered include The Publishers Association Copyright Infringement Portal, and Digital Rights Management in its various forms. Through these systems, we can reveal a lack of nuanced understanding in the motivations and methods of illegal file sharing, which have led to unsuccessful blanket solutions to a complex problem. By teasing out these problems, this paper will act as a point of reference for current anti-piracy measures, and consider the future options for an industry increasingly using the World Wide Web to distribute content.

Why Book Piracy Matters?

Why Book Piracy Matters?

Copyright and Book Piracy in Pakistan

Pakistan has to face a tremendous pressure from Western countries due to widespread book piracy. This study presents the results of a survey of the book trade regarding copyright and book piracy in the country. International conventions to which Pakistan is a signatory and national copyright law and its implementation are described. American views on the situation of copyright in Pakistan are summarized. The survey reveals that the high price of foreign books is the main cause of book piracy. Local publishers and booksellers are the major beneficiaries of book piracy. Suggestions are given to protect intellectual copyright in Pakistan. Concludes that measures to minimize book piracy will not be successful until books at low price are available for local readers.

The Copyright Divide

Most recently, the recording industry filed 261 lawsuits against individuals who illegally downloaded and distributed a large amount of music via peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, such as KaZaA, Grokster, iMesh, and Gnutella. Although the industry's recent approach was controversial and resulted in major criticisms from legislators, academics, civil libertarians, consumer advocates, and university officials, the copyright holders' aggressive tactics are not new. In fact, copyright holders have been known for using, or encouraging their government to use, coercive power to protect their creative works. Only a decade ago, the U.S. copyright industries have lobbied their government to use strong-armed tactics to coerce China into protecting intellectual property rights. Succumbing to U.S. trade pressure, the Chinese authorities eventually raided pirate factories and handed out harsh penalties, including the death penalty and life imprisonment in severe cases, on their citizens. The similarities between the RIAA and China stories were more than a coincidence and could be further linked to a third story. That story took place two centuries ago when the United States was still a less developed country. At that time, book piracy was rampant, and the United States was considered one of the most notorious pirating nations in the world. This Article brings together, for the first time, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America, twentieth-century China, and twenty-first-century cyberspace and analyzes them using a cross-cultural, cross-systemic, cross-temporal, and cross-sectoral approach. This Article not only highlights the striking similarities among the three stories, but also argues that these similarities provide insight into the war on piracy, intellectual property law reforms, and international harmonization efforts.

Book sufficiency and press efficiency: necessary tools for man, nation and development

This paper discusses book sufficiency and press efficiency as necessary tools for man, nation and development in Nigeria. The study concludes that: there is book scarcity at all levels of the educational system in Nigeria due to the non‐encouragement of local publishers and authors; the western part of the country has most of the textbooks available (in English, maths and science) in the country, followed by the eastern part where book piracy is at about 50‐70 per cent, while it is grossly inadequate in the northern part of the country. Uneven distribution of the few available books in the country results in non‐functional libraries in primary schools and few functional ones in secondary schools. The heavy dependency on foreign textbooks and journals at the tertiary level of the educational system should be discouraged, so that indigenous technology is encouraged. Recommendations are made to the Federal government of Nigeria.

Book piracy and Nigerian copyright law

The Nigerian copyright Decree No. 47 of 1988 gives protection to copyright owners with stiff penalties in the event of violations and piracy. This paper considers these provisions of the law in relation to the persistent book famine in the country, and offers suggestions which might help enhance the execution of the law.

'A sickle unto thy neighbour's corn' Book piracy in the Dutch Republic

'A sickle unto thy neighbour's corn' Book piracy in the Dutch Republic

The Author, Art and the Market: Rereading the History of Aesthetics

Reviewed by: The Author, Art, and the Market: Rereading the History of Aesthetics Todd Herzog Martha Woodmansee, The Author, Art, and the Market: Rereading the History of Aesthetics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. xv + 200 pp. In 1800, Heinrich von Kleist visited a lending library in Würzburg and issued a report on the state of reading in Germany at the time. Requesting “a few good books . . . perhaps something by Wieland . . . or by Schiller, Goethe,” he was told that he would not be likely to find such works on the shelves. “Are all these books out?” he inquired, pleased at the good taste of the library’s patrons. “Not exactly,” replied the librarian, who proceeded to inform Kleist that his library did not carry such books. “Then what sort of books have you got here along all these walls?” the author asked quizzically. “Romances of chivalry, those and nothing else,” asserted the librarian, “To the right those with ghosts, to the left without ghosts, according to taste.” The German reading public, it seems, just wasn’t reading works by the likes of Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and Kleist, but was much more interested in sensational ghost stories. What, given these circumstances, was a “high culture” author to do as his/her books piled up unsold in boxes at the press? As Martha Woodmansee shows in her very insightful and elegantly written account of the history of eighteenth-century German aesthetic theory, The Author, Art, and the Market, they set out to exorcise these ghosts from the sphere of “true” or “fine” art. Turning to the material conditions that underlie and prompt the re-evaluation of art by these theorists, Woodmansee details this process of theoretical exorcism and, in effect, conjures up the ghosts that eighteenth-century aestheticians sought to banish, bringing them back to haunt the philosophers and their theories. The book’s first chapter, “The Interests in Disinterestedness,” traces the history of aesthetic theory from Moses Mendelssohn to Karl Philipp Moritz. Mendelssohn, writing in mid-century, argued that the singular purpose of a work of art was to have an effect on its audience and hence ought to be evaluated by its ability to move us. Three decades later Mendelssohn’s pupil, Moritz, broke away from his teacher’s enormously influential theories, removing art from the constraints of affectivity to which it had been subjected and arguing instead for its existence sui generis, responsible only for being a “coherent harmonious whole” (quoted on p. 18). Woodmansee explains this remarkable shift from Mendelssohn’s theory of artistic instrumentality to Moritz’s theory of artistic autonomy through an examination of the “far-reaching changes in the production, distribution, and consumption of reading material that marked the later eighteenth century” (p. 32). [End Page 965] As literature entered the marketplace, the public was found to favor ghost stories over “demanding” writers, and the instrumentalist theory of art worked to justify the wrong works: there were simply “too many readers . . . reading too many of the wrong books for the wrong reasons and with altogether the wrong results” (p. 90). Moritz responds to this problem by “rescuing” art from the market and making a virtue of necessity: bad sales become the hallmark of “good” art. His “theology of art,” which adopted Pietist tactics to encourage reflective meditation on difficult texts, thus offered demanding writers “a very powerful set of concepts with which to address the predicament in which they found themselves” (p. 32), turning a defeat in the marketplace into a victory in the aesthetic realm—the “fine” arts were now precisely those that did not have a big impact on the public. Having traced the impact of the newly developed marketplace on the definition of art, Woodmansee turns in her second chapter to an examination of its impact on the development of the modern concept of the author. As writers moved from an aristocratic patronage system to a democratic market-based system, attempting for the first time to earn a living on their own as professionals, they found the legal foundation necessary for this shift not yet in place. Germany had not yet developed a concept of intellectual property and, consequently, book piracy...