| BOOK PIRATES OF THE MEKONG
Author Antonio Graceffo asks:
Is Cambodia the copyright crunching capital of the world ?
Gentle rural artist Van Nath (seen here with one of his works) was tortured for years. Would you deprive him by buying a fake version of his book?
'The Lonely Planet Guide to Thailand’ is a huge volume rivalled only by the New York City phone book for sheer mass. In a legitimate bookstore in Taiwan I paid roughly 1,600 baht for my copy.
But in Phnom Penh you can obtain the book for as little as 800b. If you stroll along the riverside you will be inundated by armies of small children, carrying boxes of pirated books, which, after haggling can be had for between US3 and 4. The most common are ‘The Lonely Planet Guides’ to Cambodia, Lao, Thailand, and Vietnam. Other pirated titles include ‘Off the Rails in Phnom Penh’, ‘Another Quiet American’ by Brett Dakin, and any books written about the Indochina conflict.
Pirated books are illegal copies for which the authors and publishing companies are not paid. This means that when I bought a pirated copy of ‘The Gate’, Francois Bizot received nothing for the months of imprisonment and torture he endured at the hands of the Khmer Rouge to write his memoir.
When I went to interview Van Nath, one of only 2 survivors of S-21, the infamous Khmer Rouge prison, I brought along a copy of his book, ‘A Cambodian Prison Portrait’ for him to sign. To my horror, he blanched when he saw that I was carrying around a pirated copy of his book. If my cameraman hadn’t offered to buy 2 original copies for US$20 each, the interview would have ended before it had even begun.
“Violations of intellectual property rights are rampant in the region” another source in Phnom Penh (not the author) told ‘Good Morning Chiangmai NEWS’.
“However, while it is relatively simple to copy CDs, photocopying books is a labour intensive operation. That may be done mainly because English language books are scarce and expensive here.”
“Cambodia is significantly behind in passing the required laws and decrees, but it is ultimately up to the Cambodian police to act. Given the general lack of police capability, this is a fairly low priority for them. But there are encouraging signs. On October 1st they raided a cigarette factory in Phnom Penh producing fake Marlboro and L&M cigarettes, mostly for export and that included to Thailand.”
As a published author, I know how little authors are compensated for their painstaking labour. I receive a royalty of only 10% of the cover price of any of my books. With my books selling for US$16.95, I would have to sell 3 of them to pay for lunch at McDonalds. If I ever caught someone selling pirated copies of my books and depriving me of my miserably small income, I would probably be capable of homicide.
Aside from the money, authors put their life and soul into a book. When you purchase a pirated book, you are telling the author that his life and soul isn’t worth $1.60. In the case of Van Nath, he was tortured in S-21 for years. Doesn’t he deserve a royalty for his book?
The problem of pirated books is not limited to the street vendors at the riverside. Many of the books in the bookshops of Phnom Penh are also illegal copies. In fact, some book stores specialise exclusively in illegal copies of books. Popular titles include anything by Tom Robins, Irwin Welsch, or any ‘beat generation’ author, such as Jack Kerouack.
Some of the books have cheap looking black and white covers, and sell for a dollar less than the better quality ones,with colour covers. Often the original book had a price tag or some other sticker on the cover, and this will then be copied onto the cover of the fake.
Long term torture victim Francois Bizot. Does he deserve 10% of what you pay for a real copy of ‘The Gate’?
I had been searching in vain for Hunter S. Thompson’s ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’, when a friend recommended a certain back street bookshop in Phnom Penh. I should have been suspicious. The owner - let’s call him Larry - was drinking rum from a large jug marked with three bold Xs.
“Ahoy!” he shouted, as I walked into the shop. Larry sported a full beard and wore a patch over one eye. A sword dangled from his pistol belt, and his pockets were obviously over-laden with gold doubloons. His parrot leapt sleepily off of his shoulder, as he balanced awkwardly on his wooden leg.
“What might you be wanting?” He asked, extending his hook hand for me to shake.
I may have exaggerated a bit. Larry didn’t actually look like Long John Silver. And he wasn’t missing any limbs, although he did have a slight weight problem. But Larry was one of the modern day pirates of the Mekong, trafficking in purloined copyrighted materials.
“I am looking for ‘Fear and Loathing’.” I said. “Yes, we have that one,” said Larry.
“Great, where is it?” I asked.
Larry fished around in the stockroom, and returned with a mint-condition copy of ‘Fear and Loathing’, wrapped delicately in protective plastic. “Come back tomorrow,” Larry instructed. “I have to send this out to be copied.”
Since my first book, ‘The Monk from Brooklyn’, had been published in the States, I had been trying, without success, to find a publisher or distributor in Asia who could help sell my book. I asked my new friend if he had any suggestions. “Pirate it” came the speedy reply. “Excuse me?” I asked, thinking I had heard him wrong. “Yeah, just pirate your own book. Then you sell them to bookstores.”
As desperate as I was to see my book on shelves in Asia, this just didn’t seem honest. On the other hand, who would I be stealing from? Myself? Is that a crime? Contractually, it probably is, since I would be using an original copy which had come from my publisher in the States. So I decided to do
just one copy, so I could see how the process worked.
Larry explained that virtually any copy shop in Phnom Penh would copy and bind a book for me, no questions asked. “But you have to pay a dollar extra for a colour cover.”
Larry recommended a particular copy shop, on Sihanouk Boulevard, which was reliable and fast. “Tell them I sent you, and you will get our volume discount,” he added.
Having spoken to legal experts in Cambodia, I have been told that Cambodia actually has the same body of copyright law as any western country! “So these copies are illegal in Cambodia?” I asked, verifying. “Yes,” answered my legal expert. “But they are sold openly. Why don’t the police do anything about it?”
The answer was obvious. The vast majority of the Cambodian police couldn’t read Khmer, much less English. So they definitely couldn’t be bothered with a copyright violation involving an English book. Secondly, the Cambodian police academy course was only 2 weeks long. It was questionable just how much law the trainees were even taught!
“Lots of bookshops here are buying pirated books wholesale and selling them in large quantities now, and it really is a shame. Not only do the original writers and publishers get screwed, but the quality of the pirated books is terrible and they fall apart in no time. They are junk.
On top of that, the dishonest shops that buy them wholesale, sell them for close to the price of the same title as a used book, but the used ones are generally quite good quality and worth much more.”
George M. Goldberg,
Gecko Books,
Chiangmai.
“Prostitution is also illegal in Cambodia,” pointed out my legal expert. “But that goes on everywhere too.”
At the copy shop, Larry’s words came true. No one asked me anything, or even cared when I told them that I was the author of the book. They simply gave me a receipt, and told me to come back the next day to collect my copy. The price was only US$4. So, if I sold this book for US$7, I’d be undercutting the retail price by nearly 10 dollars and receiving nearly double the profit. Of course, if the book sold well, there was no guarantee that someone else wouldn’t start pirating my book, and cut me out completely!
The copy I received the next day was so-so. The cover did look like the original, and it was in colour. But it was clearly a second-generation copy and had lost much of its sharpness. Inside, some pages were clear, others were out of focus. Some pages were still connected and had to be cut with a knife to be read. But at the end of the day, it was a readable, acceptable copy of my book, and with a saving of 10 dollars.
Most consumers, particularly price sensitive backpackers, would be willing to accept the slight loss of quality in exchange for the financial saving.
The problem of book piracy is unstoppable in Cambodia. The police don’t care. The government does nothing. In fact, other forms of piracy, such as film piracy, are so endemic that one of the Cambodian TV stations shows badly-dubbed, illegal copies of American movies. They send someone to Thailand with a video camera and he films the movie in the cinema. When they come on Cambodian TV you can see the backs of people’s heads, clouds of cigarette smoke, or the sound of a Thai businessman talking on his cell phone!
The problem is also not limited to Cambodia. Bookstores in Thailand send buyers to Phnom Penh to buy pirated books by the crate load. Popular titles can be ordered in advance, or originals can be transported to Cambodia for copying. Next time you are browsing in an English language bookstore in Thailand, look for the odd, photocopied stickers on the book covers. Or, just ask yourself how a US$20 book could be sold for 300 baht!
In case you’re wondering, I didn’t sell the illegal copy of my book. I saved it, as a memento of my Peter Pan like detour into the world of pirates.
If you see an illegal copy of my book being sold someplace, please let me know. And until then, just order a copy of ‘The Monk from Brooklyn’ off Amazon.com. In fact, buy 2 and give one to a friend. But only to a friend who doesn’t have a copy machine.
|
