After the new book is opened, the ink smell is pungent, the cover color is dull or too bright, the paper is rough and scratched, and the handwriting is blurred... Maybe you have accidentally bought a pirated book.
Piracy has always been an ingrained disease in the book market. When more and more parents began to consciously let their children read more children's books, piracy became more rampant in the field of children's books.
Many parents have also noticed that pirated children's books not only hurt their children's eyesight, but also hurt their bodies due to the unpleasant smell of ink and rough craftsmanship. There are often typos in the text that affect children's understanding of books, making it difficult to attract children's interest.
On the occasion of March 15 this year, we interviewed a number of parents on this topic, connected with editors of several children's book publishers, and consulted lawyers.
After sorting out, it is found that in the face of pirated children's books, parents and publishers have expressed that they are deeply affected, but they are hard to guard against.
The publishing house said that the current "robbery" can only be aimed at specific booksellers, and as a result, it is often time-consuming and labor-intensive to fall into the quagmire of guerrilla warfare, with little success.
Because children's book sales have been tied to discounts for a long time, pirated children's books have appeared in various sales channels, attracting parents' attention with low prices, and even eroding the living space of genuine books.
Faced with the question of whether it is genuine or not raised by parents when purchasing, pirated booksellers are often hesitant.
Several editors of the publishing house also said that they "couldn't even have the heart to open the platform page full of pirated copies".
Why did many voices finally sigh in the face of pirated children's books?
Rampant piracy: Parents and editors alike
Piracy is not a strict legal concept, it includes many forms, but in practice, reprinting has become the main form used by pirated booksellers due to its low cost and low technological requirements.
Reprinting refers to the unauthorized printing of a book whose external characteristics and content characteristics are the same as those of the original book without the consent of the copyright owner, which infringes the reproduction right in the copyright , distribution rights and other rights are also the forms of piracy discussed in this article.
So which platforms are these pirated children's books mainly distributed on?
Which books are easily pirated?
Do parents really buy a book home just because it's cheap, regardless of whether it's pirated?
We sent out a questionnaire to parents of children's book readers and got 53 responses about pirated children's books.
From the perspective of purchase channels, pirated children's books are spread across various e-commerce platforms.
Among the 53 people, 42 people said that they would deliberately avoid suspected pirated children's books, 33 people said they hated the piracy of children's books, and 45 people summarized the characteristics of pirated books. The editor's description of pirated children's books is similar.
After purchasing pirated children's books, parents basically do not complain to relevant agencies.
They just summed up their experience, such as "pirated books, the longer the time is, the worse the paint smell will endanger the health of children", "many new books are not available in public domain e-commerce, but pirated copies are being sold in some private domain e-commerce", "niche" , Unpopular children's books seem to be less pirated"... to prevent themselves from buying pirated books next time, but their experience is difficult to spread on a large scale.
When a parent mentioned the pirated children's books on the "Kai Tuan Tuan" platform, "Many mothers don't know what to buy, they will buy it with the group leader, and buy whatever the group leader sends... The scary thing is that the group leader conveyed The concept is that picture books are expensive, you don’t need books to be genuine, they are consumables, not collectibles…” In pirated sales, opinion leaders not only make profits, but also convey the wrong concept of children’s books to parents.
Pirated children's books hurt the reading experience of parents and children, and of course the interests of children's book brands.
All 13 children's book publishers interviewed listed their children's books most likely to be pirated.
Many editors said that the emergence of pirated books is always accompanied by ultra-low prices. If they find children's books that are sold at a 40% discount below the list price, or even the sales price within 10 yuan and a 20% discount on the list price, they will suspect that they are. Piracy.
Pirated children's books are quite different from genuine books in terms of color saturation, printing clarity, whether the handwriting is ghosted, the quality of binding and typesetting, and the texture of the paper itself.
In terms of bibliographic selection, classic books, best-sellers, new products, and products with low children’s cognition often become the hardest hit areas for piracy. The editorial summary of Magic Elephant, paperback books of children’s literature and recommended books selected by some institutions are easy to be pirated. .
The editor of Guangxi Science and Technology Publishing House concluded, "Children's books with greater influence are more likely to be pirated." Chihiro's editor believes that "the publicity was very strong when it was first launched, and it has a certain reputation in their respective fields. Children's books are prone to piracy." The editor's experience is that "high-definition photocopying technology is more and more developed, and after photocopying, it is reprinted, and it is difficult for ordinary readers to distinguish between genuine and pirated books in the face of black and white books."
According to the publishing house, Xinyi produced "Guess How Much I Love You", "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", "Grandpa Must Have a Way", "Runaway Rabbit", "Mother Buys Mung Beans", "Reunion", "A Garden of Vegetables" There are pirated books in many top and best-sellers such as "Liao Jing".
The "Chicken Ball" series produced by Xinxiyue has a market piracy ratio of up to 40%, the popular science book "Our Body" under Le Fun's sales volume exceeds one million copies, and the "Great China Treasure Hunt" by 21st Century Publishing Group Unlike the children's book "Different Carmela" imported from France, the French children's popular science "First Discovery" series and "Barbapapa" series published by Relay Press, and the German "Finance Fairy Tales" "Little Boys" introduced by CITIC Publishing House. "Dog Qian Qian" has become the target of pirated booksellers to reprint.
The anti-piracy staff of the 21st Century Publishing Group said that there are more than 500 kinds of children's books they publish that may be pirated, but due to limited energy, they can only focus on the top products in "anti-piracy". Due to piracy, the publishing house estimates that the loss is 300 million to 500 million yards.
But for most publishers, what they have the most initiative to do, and what they do most often, is to remind readers to avoid pirated books on the official WeChat or short video platform (see the note at the end of the article). It is also difficult to estimate how much the loss caused by piracy.
There are many ways of piracy: it is difficult to determine piracy without seeing the genuine
Under the standard requirements of the publishing industry, the specific editions and printed impressions of genuine books will be marked in a prominent position on the copyright page. However, this standard has inadvertently provided convenience for pirated booksellers.
The editor of Relay Press said in an interview: "Pirates don't even need to select a book to determine which book is likely to sell well. They just need to look at the copyright page and how many times a book has been reprinted to know which one is a bestseller. ."
Now the speed of piracy is beyond people's imagination. Some genuine books have not been printed out, and there are already pirated copies in the market.
According to the editor of Love Tree, their "My Creative Picture Book: 50% of Gomi Taro" was released in less than a month, and the first-generation pirated version appeared. The content of this book is that Gomi Taro drew 50% of the paintings, please children Use your imagination to draw the other 50% in the blanks.
If the reader has not seen the genuine copy, they may think it is an A4 paper picture book of graffiti.
But in fact, this book uses Swedish-imported environmentally friendly paper with relatively high bulk, which can be lighter while ensuring the texture, which is convenient for children to hold and draw, and has a high environmental protection level.
The paper used in the pirated book is ordinary printing paper, and is printed in one color.
Because this book is very thick, with 368 pages in its entirety, it is like a large brick when it is bound with ordinary paper, which is especially not suitable for children, and the phenomenon of paper permeation will be very serious.
To sell such pirated books, pirated booksellers take advantage of the differences in channels to "seize the opportunity".
"My Creative Picture Book: Five Flavor Taro 50%" was only sold exclusively on some channels designated by Love Tree when it was first released, and it has not been put on the shelves of public domain e-commerce companies such as JD.com and Dangdang. It is easy for readers to be deceived by piracy if they do not know the genuine book and it is difficult to find the information of the genuine book.
Children's books such as Magic Elephant's "Lonely Star Tribe on an Uninhabited Island" and 99 Scholar's "From Hanhan to Dare" have experienced similar experiences.
Both are pirated copies.
The film on the cover of the book on the left can be torn off, the words on the right side of the book are incomplete, and the title page has obvious white borders.
The picture is provided by 99 readers.
After children's books are pirated, there will be various "deformations", and the piracy of picture books is also different from that of children's literature.
Based on the information provided by a number of children's book publishers, the piracy of children's books can be summarized as follows.
First, in order to save costs to the greatest extent, pirated booksellers often change the original hardcover of picture books (the publishing house has not published paperbacks) directly to paperbacks. No matter what format the original picture book is, it can be turned into 16 , because "the industry knows that this format is the most paper-saving".
Second, the binding of pirated children's books is rough and loose, and it is very easy to drop pages.
The paper used is inferior, and pirated copies of picture books often replace the genuine, slightly yellowed eye-protecting matte copper with paper that is whiter and more reflective, and the thickness of the paper is also thinner.
Printing with inferior ink, not only the color is not standard, but also the pungent smell cannot be eliminated after a long time.
Piracy of children's literature prints the original color illustrations in black and white.
Third, with the maturity of the piracy process, many pirated books are more and more similar in appearance and form to the genuine version, and some pirated books have also developed "creative adaptations", such as the text after the pirated children's books of many publishers Pinyin has been added above.
There are also key information about books such as copyright pages and author profiles that will be lost after piracy.
Fourth, after the children's book is on the market, it is a common piracy method to buy a genuine copy and scan it into an electronic version for reprinting.
So readers will see typos, missing words and spelling mistakes in pirated books.
In addition, there are errors that are not easy to find, such as the typesetting is not rigorous, and the spine text and pictures are not centered.
After some readers bought the pirated copy of "The Magic School Bus" produced by Dandelion Children's Bookstore, they found the above errors and left a message on the platform.
The editor of the Buyin Children's Bookstore said that after seeing the addition of pinyin to the pirated book, "even considering whether to make a genuine pinyin book".
Fifth, some pirated books are openly marked as "high-quality editions", "hardcover imitation editions" and "the motherland editions" when they are sold.
The editor of Dandelion Children's Bookstore said: "On the whole, pirated books are divided into low-end and high-end books. Low-end pirated books have poor printing quality and are easy to distinguish, while high-end pirated books are more difficult to distinguish. Although the current pirated book market is still dominated by low-end books Mainly, but there are also high-end piracy, so we can’t blindly think that pirated books are cheaper than genuine books.”
But the problem is, like the example of "My Creative Picture Book Gomi Taro 50%" mentioned above, as long as parents have not seen genuine children's books, it is difficult to perceive how bad pirated books are.
Books are not functional products that can have an immediate effect after reading, but many parents have unrealistic expectations for books.
An editor of Xinxi Reading said that the logic of many parents buying children's books is almost the same as the logic of buying medicine - "Children don't like to brush their teeth, what books should they read?" "Children can't concentrate, what books can they read to cultivate? "...Parents who fall into cognitive misunderstandings often compare children's books to "drugs", but in fact they follow a whole set of "medicine to cure diseases" logic in selecting books, and it is enough to achieve curative effects. Whether it is genuine or not does not seem to be considered.
However, the value of a book is often reflected in the silent details, from the texture of the paper to the layout of the layout, not to mention the accuracy of the most basic content. This series of comprehensive reading is a three-dimensional reading. Experience, compared to the acquisition of specific content, the cultivation of long-term reading habits is more profound.
"Spring Breeze Blows Again": The "Gopher Circle" of Peer-to-Peer Robbery?
With the improvement of printing technology, the cost of pirated copy is also greatly reduced.
In order to prevent the publication of our books from being reprinted, the publishing house has a relatively strict approval process for the external transmission of the source files, and stipulates that the PDF files of the entire book shall not be externally transmitted.
However, such anti-piracy procedures are still stretched in the face of pirated booksellers.
According to editors from several publishing houses, pirated booksellers don’t even need to go to great lengths to obtain source files, they can simply electronically scan them when they buy physical books.
The low-cost piracy process has fueled the rise of individual pirated booksellers, and it is almost impossible to centrally deal with pirate shops scattered in different locations, with hidden printing and highly mobile pirates.
In fact, readers, publishers and relevant institutions are all responding to the phenomenon of piracy, but they often fight against each other alone, and it is difficult to form a linkage effect. Drag into the long-line quagmire of point-to-point guerrillas.
It can be seen in the questionnaire that when parents complain to the store after unintentionally buying pirated copies, the store is likely to be "indifferent or ignore it", and the better results are "return some money to settle the matter" or "return the genuine book" ".
It is conceivable that in the face of the time-consuming and laborious return and exchange process and the unsuitable compensation, most parents have no energy or motivation to continue to follow up.
Faced with this situation, the publishing house has no greater initiative.
Based on the rights protection process provided by editors of multiple publishing houses, after the pirated books are discovered on the e-commerce platform, there are generally four processing methods that can be initiated by the publishing house.
The first is to file a complaint with the platform where the store selling pirated children's books is located, and ask the platform to deal with the store.
The second is to file a complaint with the State Anti-pornography and Anti-Illegal Office and other administrative departments.
The third is to go through the civil litigation process and fight a lawsuit with a store that sells pirated children's books.
The fourth is to report piracy to the public security organ. If the infringer is suspected of committing a criminal offence such as the crime of copyright infringement as stipulated in the Criminal Law, the public security organ will file a case for criminal investigation.
The approach that most children's book publishers use is the first.
However, in the process of complaining to the platform, the publishing house is also in a passive position.
In order to prove that a certain store sells pirated books, the publishing house first needs to buy the physical books it is selling through the platform, and then conduct a series of appraisals, fill in the complaint application, fill in and upload relevant evidence, and need to continue to follow up.
The editor of Relay Publishing House said, "The best solution is to remove the store from the platform, but you don't know where the pirated books they sell go to later."
Some early-established children's book brands have formed a stable market reputation due to the various children's books they have published, and the phenomenon of piracy is particularly serious.
Therefore, Xinyi, Love Tree, and Relay Publishing House have all set up the post of "piracy specialist". Special personnel are responsible for patrolling each platform, and they will also detect and deal with piracy in a timely manner through reader reports and channel feedback.
There are also publishing houses that cooperate with law firms to purchase "annual package" services ranging from three to five years, and entrust special personnel to handle them on their behalf. They patrol the entire platform every day to search for pirated booksellers one by one.
They are the so-called "copyright hunters".
It is worth noting that, from Taobao to Pinduoduo to Kuaituantuan, the concentration of pirated children's books on a certain platform also echoes the rise of this e-commerce platform, especially on platforms with low store opening costs and untimely complaint handling. , pirated booksellers are not afraid of being blocked by the platform, and if one store is blocked, a second store will continue to open.
Not only online platforms, but also offline bookstores or book markets, pirated children's books can also be seen.
There are also publishing houses that will "step forward" and take action against piracy to the courts and public security organs.
Relay Press and 21st Century Press Group have had experience in this regard.
In 2021, 21st Century Publishing Group will cooperate with a team of professional intellectual property lawyers to complete the collection of evidence from 507 pirated bookstores and file 238 cases.
The editor of Relay Press said that in 2021, Relay Press will remove more than 5,900 pirated links that constitute infringement on the press, and will identify and file lawsuits against 67 ground bookstores and 44 Pinduoduo online stores.
It's just that these two publishing houses are "old-fashioned" children's book publishing institutions with many best-selling children's books, and the cost behind this rights protection is unaffordable for relatively small publishing houses.
Even if the lawsuit is won, the compensation received by the publishing house is far from making up for the losses suffered by the book being pirated.
Not only that, in the process of filing a civil lawsuit with the court, the publishing house often can only list the specific merchant as the subject of the lawsuit, and it is difficult to directly litigate the platform where the merchant is located.
Qiao Mu, a practice tutor at the School of International Law of China University of Political Science and Law and a lawyer from Beijing Zhongtong Cecheng Law Firm, explained that this is because the platform applies the "safe haven principle" in relevant laws.
The "safe haven principle" means that when a subject uses the services provided by the online platform to commit infringement, the platform has not taken necessary measures such as deleting, blocking, or disconnecting the link after receiving the notification from the infringer, or the platform knows that there are online users. In addition to using its network services to infringe on the civil rights and interests of others but refusing to take necessary measures, the platform does not necessarily directly bear joint and several liability.
In practice, it will undoubtedly increase the difficulty and cost of rights protection for non-legal professionals to provide evidence to the platform to prove that a certain business has committed piracy and infringement.
When large-scale merchants settle in, it is difficult for the platform to check one by one, and the detection of infringement and piracy is also subject to professionalism. Therefore, under this principle, the platform is only obliged to take measures after knowing the existence of infringing acts or infringing content.
"Once the complaint is successful, if the platform unilaterally continues to let it rage, it needs to bear joint and several liability. Therefore, in the actual proof process, the main difficulty is the first time."
In an interview, lawyer Qiao also mentioned that the centralized rectification of pirated booksellers is also facing an embarrassing situation at the practical level.
"If a publishing house sues 10 stores on a certain platform for infringement, but it is difficult to verify whether the production sources of pirated books behind these 10 stores are consistent, if we can find out the production channels of pirated books, it is the so-called 'den'. However, if their supply channels are different, the difficulty and cost of completely cracking down on pirated book dens will increase exponentially.”
More investment, less return: Where is the road to robbery?
In addition to being difficult to be exhausted in actual prosecutions, publishers also face a situation of "high cost and low compensation" when confronting pirated booksellers.
According to lawyer Qiao, according to my country's current laws, for "illegally publishing books that others enjoy exclusive publishing rights", only if the illegal income reaches more than 30,000 yuan, can he be "sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and concurrently or alone A fine”, while a sentence of three to seven years in prison generally requires an illegal business amount of more than 250,000 yuan.
However, pirated books, especially pirated children's books, are mostly priced at a low price. If a single copy is calculated at 10 yuan, it means that the pirate will have to sell 25,000 books to receive a heavier sentencing penalty. This is obviously not individual piracy. The business scale that the business can achieve.
Even if gang-style infringing production is found, the actual investigation and punishment is more difficult.
In 2019, the 21st Century Press Group received complaints from more than 400 readers in more than 30 provinces and cities across the country. The whistleblower claimed that many e-commerce platforms and some offline bookstores were selling the book "Great China Treasure Hunt" published by the publisher. ”, “Different Carmela”, “My First Science Comics” and other pirated children’s books.
From 2019 to 2022, the 21st Century Publishing House Group cooperated with the cultural law enforcement department of Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, and found a number of bookstores selling pirated children's books from the publisher in Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan and other places, and established criminal cases. In 6 cases, 5 pirated children's book suppliers were arrested in 5 cases, and 3 of them were sentenced to imprisonment for 9 months, 7 months and 5 months respectively.
The rights protection model of high cost and low compensation has discouraged many small and medium-sized publishing houses.
According to lawyer Qiao's observation, there are actually not many lawsuits around book piracy. The first is difficult to obtain evidence, the second is small, and many books that are not very popular often do not get much compensation when defending their rights against piracy. Therefore, it is almost impossible to do it in practice.
Faced with destroying pirates one after another like gophers, and being caught in a time-consuming and laborious rights protection process with little success, the publishing house has also tried to jointly launch a boycott through industry alliances.
As early as 2016, 36 publishing houses across the country initiated the establishment of the "National Children's Publishing Anti-Piracy Alliance".
However, since the member units are scattered all over the country, it is often difficult to form a joint force to fight against piracy.
According to the anti-piracy personnel of the 21st Century Publishing Group, the Children's Anti-Piracy Alliance has signed intellectual property protection agreements with some e-commerce platforms.
At the just-concluded National People's Congress, a number of deputies to the National People's Congress and members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference put forward a number of proposals in response to this phenomenon, suggesting that the relevant departments increase the penalties for pirated book printers and sellers, and strengthen the standards for conviction and sentencing. It has a deterrent and warning effect on infringement and piracy, and calls on e-commerce platforms to conduct full review when uploading sales links.
However, it is worth thinking about what else can we do to combat piracy in addition to the control at the law enforcement level and the supervision of the platform?
At least from the perspective of parents, raising awareness of anti-piracy, vigilance against piracy when shopping online, and rejecting piracy are one of the most direct and effective means.
This also requires parents to learn more about the basic knowledge of children's books, know the key information that genuine children's books must have, and the difference from pirated books, and look for formal channels when buying children's books, such as the ones run by children's book publishing organizations themselves. flagship store, etc.
The original intention of parents to buy books is to hope that high-quality book content will have a positive impact on their children. However, if the children's book market is allowed to flood with low-cost pirated copies, the sales channels of genuine books will be disrupted.
Parents may also subconsciously agree with the "reasonable existence" of pirated children's books. The greediness of buying children's books at lower prices will make piracy more rampant. In the long run, the living space of publishing houses will be squeezed. , unable to continue to produce high-quality books, and ultimately the whole market has no choice but to go to the paradox of bad money driving out good money.
What kind of nutrients can children's books that have been disrupted by the introduction of living water from the source and disrupted market rules provide our next generation?
References for this article: Xia Bing. "Several Situations of Book Piracy and Preventive Measures in Libraries". "Library", 2006 (02), pp. 116-117.
Author | Shen Lu, Shen Chan