Last Sunday, the Kaieteur News reported on the seemingly unstoppable trade in illegal reproduction and sale of text books and the impact of the practice on the viability of legitimate bookselling operations. Beyond the fact of its flagrant transgression of intellectual property, what makes the reproduction and sale of text books unacceptable is the fact that the legitimate business of bookselling has, over time, been virtually strangled out of existence by competition that is both illegal and seemingly officially condoned. Indeed, in more ways than one, parallels can be drawn with the recent incident in which a quantity of alleged fake reproductions of shoes was reportedly being offered for sale by a local trader, resulting in the trader offering the original brand engaging the authorities and securing the seizure of the offending items. Years of complaints by booksellers about the marketing by pirates of fake reproductions have failed to secure a similar response by the authorities.
If the argument is sometimes made that the marketing of copied school texts works to the advantage of parents who cannot afford the higher cost of the original publishers’ texts, it is doubtful that the pursuits of the pirates are informed by the altruistic motive of bringing a measure of relief to poor people. For them, it is simply a lucrative, albeit illegal way of earning money. Over time the producers of these texts have refined their operations, upgrading copying equipment to produce larger quantities of better quality ‘fakes’ and recruiting several established retailers into providing a distribution service to a guaranteed market. In the process, neither the pirates nor the government has been in the least mindful of the crushing impact of the trade in copied books on the beleaguered bookselling industry. And while one would have thought that an illegal ‘business practice’ pursued to the detriment of legitimate business enterprises ought to have been the business of the local private sector umbrella bodies, both the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) and the Private Sector Commission (PSC) have, as far as we are aware, been silent on this issue.
A few years ago, just prior to the eventual closure of his Water Street bookstore following years of being undersold by the pirates, Mr. Ovid Holder told this newspaper that he believed that the government, through its indifference, was no less guilty (than the pirates) of creating a situation in which it had become impossible for local booksellers to operate viable businesses. Significantly, since the closure of Mr. Holder’s business, there has not been a single investment in the sector.
As an aside, it is worth wondering whether the business operations that produce illegal texts have any kind of relationship with the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) and, assuming that they do, whether the Commissioner General of the GRA has ever contemplated the legality or otherwise of their earnings. Textbook copying, after all, constitutes an illegal business pursuit and that is a matter that ought to concern the GRA.
Both Mr. Holder and Mr. Lloyd Austin, the proprietor of Austin’s Bookstore, have fought a protracted battle against the illegal operators at the levels of the media courts. Both have persistently cited official indifference to the practice as the reason for its persistence. They have made the point that the sale of copied books is not a clandestine operation but a wide open multi million dollar pursuit and that finding the operators and putting an end to the practice can hardly be likened to searching for a needle in a haystack.
This newspaper’s experience in reporting on this matter is that Ministry of Education officials with whom we have spoken, have waffled on the matter, sometimes conceding the existence of the practice on condition of anonymity but never venturing an on-the-record official position on the issue. In fact, some years ago, we raised with the Ministry cases of what appeared to be the involvement of some state-run schools in marketing copied texts with a senior official who simply declined to offer a comment on the matter.
Now, it appears, Mr. Austin has taken charges of official culpability a good deal further, asserting, according to the aforementioned media report, that “……….the Ministry of Education itself has joined in the infringement by awarding these contracts.” Austin, according to the newspaper, asserts that “this is nothing new but it has now evolved.” The said media report also appears to have elicited a response from Education Minister Shaik Baksh who is quoted as saying that he is “not aware of any such activities.” Perhaps more significantly, Minister Baksh has reportedly promised to “find out” about the allegation, an undertaking which, presumably, can be taken to mean that he is prepared to mount some kind of enquiry into the matter. This, as far as we are aware, is the furthest that any Minister of Education has ever gone in addressing this matter and if Minister Baksh keeps his word that alone will be a landmark development in the illegal text books saga.
There is, of course, another side to the issue of text book copyright infringement and that is that the ‘beneficiaries’ are those thousands of mostly working class parents of school-age children for whom pirated books mean cheaper acquisition. The point has been made to us by a Ministry official that the authorities consider their hands tied on the matter since to outlaw pirated texts would mean risking the ire of parents who would then have to buy the original publishers texts at significantly higher prices. If and when the Education Minister seeks to “find out” about the practice of text book pirating he will no doubt discover that there is indeed a thriving trade in copied school texts. Whether or not it turns out that his own Ministry is involved he will have to decide whether or not to pronounce on the practice as a whole, whoever may be doing the illegal copying. Will the Minister then feel compelled to pass judgment on the practice or will the matter simply be allowed to slide?
Pursuit of the latter option, of course, would render the Minister and his Ministry vulnerable to even more robust charges of being indifferent to copyright law. To ignore the issue would also strengthen the case of booksellers and the publishers (some of whom have already expressed their consternation over the copyright practice) who accuse the Ministry and, by extension, the Government of Guyana, of being unmindful of their legitimate business interests. On the other hand, should the Minister take what some would consider to be a principled and correct position on the issue by, for example, outlawing the use of copied texts in state schools, that could provoke a robust backlash from parents who would then be compelled to spend significantly greater sums on publishers’ originals.
The point should be made that this situation is not unique to Guyana or even to the region. In much of Asia, for example, copyright infringement has long been a multi-million dollar industry involving powerful business interests and the available evidence suggests that despite the fact that issues of copyright continue to attract more and more international legal attention, high demand among poor parents coupled with technological advancements which have made copying better and cheaper has seen the ‘industry’ grow continually.
To make this argument, however, is not to seek to dismiss the case of the writers, publishers and booksellers who are entitled under the law to a fair return from their intellectual and monetary investments. However much we might be seduced by the poverty argument, copyright and intellectual property infringement laws cannot be sacrificed on the altar of some perceived greater good. As the Guyanese-born publisher Arif Ali (Hansib Publishers) put it some time ago, “we cannot steal to educate our children” and though the two issues may appear to some to be tied one to another they are in fact two separate issues.
How to make education more affordable is an ongoing pursuit of the Government of Guyana. Still, turning a blind eye to a persistent and glaring illegality that is crippling an industry which, itself contributes to national education and intellectual development is not the solution to the problem. The government must both take a stand on pirated text books while working – ideally with publishing houses – to make text books available at affordable prices.
