● Regular printing houses generally do not print pirated books, and most of the pirated books are printed by some small workshops.
The reporter's investigation found that in the book-related post bars, there are posts selling and providing printed books everywhere. Most of these posters are printing factories, and there are also some book wholesale suppliers.
● Piracy is hidden, and it is difficult to detect and stop it in time.
The infringement cost of pirated booksellers is low, especially with the development of technology, the threshold for making pirated books is getting lower and lower.
However, the cost of rights protection is relatively high. Consumers or publishers need to invest a lot of economic and time costs through legal procedures, and the benefits are relatively small.
● Online e-commerce platforms should be more proactive in taking measures to stop piracy and infringement, and not only take measures to delete or take off the shelves after receiving a notice of infringement from the rights holder.
For the behavior of merchants selling pirated and infringing books, the sellers should be punished more severely according to the platform rules and the content of the agreement, such as banning the account, deducting the deposit, restricting the same operator to register the store again on the platform, etc.
● The price of a set of 8 volumes of "Four Five Quick Reading" is 143.8 yuan. The book is available in all major bookstores online, and the price varies greatly.
Some stores are priced at 140 yuan, some are priced at more than 60 yuan, and some are priced at less than 20 yuan
□ Our reporter Han Dandong
□ Our intern Guan Chuyu Gao Ruiying
Not long ago, Ms. Wu from Shandong purchased two sets of children's graded books "Little Sheep Up the Mountain" at a book store on an e-commerce platform, each priced at 327 yuan.
At that time, the merchant claimed that the book was absolutely authentic, the quality was guaranteed, and you could buy it with confidence.
But when Ms. Wu received these two sets of books, she found out that they were pirated books, and her rights protection road was twists and turns.
In fact, this is not what happened to Ms. Wu alone.
Recently, a number of consumers reported to the "Rules of Law Daily" reporter that they had bought suspected pirated books on different e-commerce platforms.
The reporter's recent investigation found that in the book-related post bars, there are posts selling and providing printed books everywhere, such as "print all kinds of books, large quantities and good prices, come quickly", "all kinds of books can be printed", "book imitations". , accepting orders normally" and so on.
After contacting the reporter, it was found that most of these posters were printing factories, and there were also some book wholesale suppliers.
Experts interviewed suggested that online e-commerce platforms should be more proactive in taking measures to stop piracy and infringement, rather than taking measures to delete or remove them only after receiving a notice of infringement from the rights holder.
At the same time, copyright law enforcement agencies should also increase administrative enforcement of online sales of pirated and infringing books, and severely punish piracy.
buy pirated books online
The platform does not admit the refusal to compensate
The reason why Ms. Wu suspected that she might have bought a pirated book was because after receiving the book, she found that there was no small program supporting service of "one book, one code".
When I consulted the merchant, the other party said that the book that Ms. Wu purchased was a promotional item and did not talk about the related services of the applet.
"Even if it's a promotional item, there should be some services!" Ms. Wu said. Later, she discovered that the name of an author in "Little Sheep Up the Mountain" she bought was the same book sold by other stores. Inconsistencies in the book, only to be sure that I bought a pirated book.
So, she sent a set of books to the brand side of "Little Sheep Up the Mountain" for identification, and the brand side replied verbally that it was pirated.
But the platform still refused to admit it, and asked Ms. Wu to issue a paper document that was identified as a pirated copy by the entrusted brand.
Because there are no paper documents, the platform's customer service immediately stated that there are three types of valid certificates for authenticating authenticity: one is the appraisal report from the brand party; It is enough to submit one of the letters of the identified "counterfeit brand".
In desperation, Ms. Wu had to send the remaining set of books to the publishing house, and the final identification result was also pirated.
Unexpectedly, the platform still does not recognize the identification result, and proposes that it needs to provide the identification certificate issued by the publishing house.
Ms. Wu was in trouble and sighed, "How can I, an ordinary consumer, get the identification certificate?"
Afterwards, Ms. Wu tried to contact the merchant, and after showing relevant evidence, the merchant admitted that it was a pirated book, saying that another customer returned the pirated book to the warehouse, and accidentally sent it to Ms. Wu without paying attention to the inspection.
Ms. Wu thinks the businessman's reason is perfunctory.
"I searched this store on a third-party complaint platform and found that there were more than 20 people who bought the pirated book in the store. Could it be that these 20 people bought pirated books returned by other customers?"
At present, the platform has closed the store and removed the problematic books.
Ms. Wu has been unable to contact the store now, and the communication with the platform has also reached a deadlock. She has to protect her rights and interests through judicial means, and filed a lawsuit in the Internet Court, hoping that the platform and the store can honor the "fake one loses four" promise.
In this regard, Cao Lingxiang, a partner of Beijing Zhongyin Law Firm, said that consumers who bought pirated books need to bear the burden of proof if they claim that the books are pirated.
"If the pirated book brand and the publishing house identify the consumer as pirated, the consumer, as the client, needs to sign an entrusted appraisal contract with the appraisal agency, and then the appraisal agency will issue an appraisal opinion based on the inspection materials. This entrusted appraisal contract and appraisal opinion Books are evidence." Cao Lingxiang said.
Li Zhaoling, a lawyer from Beijing Yingke Law Firm, said that according to the law, e-commerce platforms have the obligation to supervise the settled merchants.
If the consumer cannot find the merchant or the merchant refuses to pay, then the consumer can seek the platform to make a claim or ask for the contact information of the merchant.
Pirated books form an industrial chain
It is also difficult for publishers to defend their rights
Ms. Liu from Qingdao, Shandong purchased the series of "Four-Five Quick Reading" and "Four-Five Quick Calculation" series published by Hunan Science and Technology Press at an online book store.
After the arrival, it was found that scanning the QR code of the book could not unlock the corresponding video course.
Ms. Liu told reporters that she contacted the publishing house to find out that every genuine book had an anti-counterfeiting code, but none of the books she purchased had an anti-counterfeiting code.
Afterwards, Ms. Liu bought the genuine book from the publishing house, and compared it with the book she bought on the e-commerce platform before, and found that not only the content of the copyright page was inconsistent, but also the paper quality was different, but the price of the pirated book was indeed higher than the price of the publishing house. Much cheaper.
The reporter's investigation found that the book is a bestseller, and it is sold in major online bookstores, and the price varies greatly. Some stores are priced at 140 yuan for a set of books (8 volumes), some are priced at more than 60 yuan, and some are priced at Less than 20 yuan.
To this end, the reporter interviewed the Hunan Science and Technology Press, the publisher of the book.
According to Director Tong of the publishing house, the price of this set of books is 143.8 yuan, and even if there are related promotions, it will generally not be less than 100 yuan.
Those books that are sold at a 12% discount on the list price are likely to be pirated books, which use poor paper and ink, and do not unlock the corresponding course services.
Such infringements seriously violate the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and publishers.
Director Tong revealed to reporters that the publishing house had sued more than 100 online stores last year, asking them to remove books from the shelves and stop the infringement immediately.
Some are punished by the court, and some have reached a settlement. Because the workload of cracking down on pirated books is large and complicated, and the publishing house does not have a special team to follow up on this matter, there are many cases of finally choosing to settle.
"The store will give the publisher some compensation, but it's a drop in the bucket. As far as I know, these pirated books have an industry chain, and there are several centralized suppliers. The loss and compensation of the products removed by some stores are even guaranteed by the source supplier. Yes." Director Tong said.
Director Tong told reporters that the effect of cracking down on end stores is very limited. Every time a batch of stores is closed, a batch of new stores will soon be launched and a batch of new pirated books will be put on the shelves.
After the publishing house found out, they sued a batch of stores again. The workload was heavy, but the root problem could not be solved. Therefore, they have begun to trace the source of pirated books through third-party rights protection agencies.
It is understood that if you want to publish a book, you must first apply for a regular and legal book number from the publishing house. The printing factory must receive the commission issued by the publishing house before printing it, otherwise it will be regarded as a pirated book.
Therefore, regular printing houses generally do not print pirated books, and pirated books are mostly printed by some small workshops.
The reporter found a lot of printing factories with a simple search on the Internet.
The reporter searched for "wholesale of pirated books" in a post bar, and immediately popped up the contact information of many printing houses, and soon contacted two of the printers, both of which said that as long as the customer can provide the electronic version of the book, they can print the electronic version. Books, the greater the number of prints, the better the discount.
With the development of printing technology, the cost of pirated copy printing has also been greatly reduced. Today's pirated booksellers do not need to find ways to obtain the source files of books. They can directly buy genuine books on the market and scan them into electronic versions for printing.
Li Zhaoling said that the sale of pirated books not only affects the sales of genuine books, infringes the interests of book rights holders, but also constitutes damage to social and public order.
According to the provisions of the Copyright Law, infringement of copyright, depending on the circumstances, needs to bear civil liabilities such as stopping the infringement, eliminating the impact, making an apology, and compensating for losses.
Those who infringe copyright while harming public interests shall also bear administrative responsibilities, such as ordering to stop the infringing act, confiscation of illegal gains, confiscation and destruction of infringing copies, fines, etc.
Pirated books cost only a few dollars
Can be represented on the platform
Mo Ming (pseudonym) from Yangjiang, Guangdong once bought pirated textbooks.
"At that time, I was preparing for the postgraduate entrance examination. I bought a genuine book to study, and there were four sets of sprint volumes. The merchants that sold the genuine book were slow to deliver the book. I went to other platforms to find a store that could deliver fast, but when I received I knew the paper was pirated." Mo Ming said.
Mo Ming told reporters that at first glance, this paper was scanned from a genuine book and made into an electronic version. The quality of the paper was very poor, some of the content was printed crookedly, and the printing ink was very smelly. .
The comparison with other genuine books in his hand is very obvious, but he is about to take the postgraduate entrance examination. He just wants to get the questions to do quickly, and has no time to defend his rights.
But when I think that the price is still the same as the original, I feel that it is too much.
The reporter randomly contacted a printing factory that posted a post saying that it can print various books. A staff member of the printing factory told the reporter that as long as the electronic version of the book or a sample book can be provided, it can be printed.
"The unit price is related to the quantity. The unit price of hundreds of copies and thousands of copies is definitely different. We usually start from 500 copies. If there is an electronic version, it can be typeset and printed directly. If it is a sample book, it needs to be scanned and then typeset and printed. Additional charges are required," the staff member said.
When the reporter asked about the specific price, the staff member said that it depends on what kind of book is printed, and also depends on the specific number of pages, paper size, printing quantity, etc., which all have an impact on the final unit price.
If the general book requirements are not high, the unit price is about 5 yuan, and full-color printing will be more expensive, but children's books will be cheaper if the number of pages is small, one or two yuan is also possible.
Afterwards, the reporter asked if there were books in stock for sale in the name of wanting to open a bookstore. The staff member told the reporter that they were only printing books and not in stock.
If you need stock, you can go to the post bar to find it, there are many.
The reporter then contacted several book wholesalers. The wholesalers all said that they were selling genuine books, but several wholesalers said that they could handle the business of entering the e-commerce platform.
After asking the reporter, we learned that in order to enter the e-commerce platform, we need the qualification to open a store and many normal procedures, and these can be handled by one-stop agent.
Some directly post to solicit business, claiming that "the online publication business license has been packaged, the store has been transferred, operated on behalf of the company, and settled in. All kinds of stores are available, and the price is favorable."
A salesman who claimed to be able to act as an agent told reporters that franchised bookstores stationed on the e-commerce platform need the brand authorization and publication business license of the publishing house.
And they can do all of these on behalf of them, just need to handle the person's ID card. The price is different for different platforms, generally 30,000 to 60,000 yuan, and it takes about 20 days to get the certificate.
Pirated books are repeatedly banned
It is urgent to lower the threshold of rights protection
Why do online pirated books continue to be banned?
"On the one hand, the reason is that it is profitable for merchants to sell best-selling books; on the other hand, the reason is that some readers may not reject piracy because of their subjective wishes," said Director Tong.
Li Zhaoling believes that there are generally two "powers" for the circulation of pirated books. One is the driving force on the sales side. Once a certain book becomes a hot product, driven by profits, there is an incentive to find "piracy sources"; the second is the driving force on the production side. For hot-selling books, printers will also act to make pirated books, and then use the current Internet, logistics and other channels to find sellers.
Li Zhaoling said that the current circulation and sales models of pirated books are also varied, and there may be no need to meet between the upper and lower books of the book circulation. Piracy is hidden, and it is difficult to detect and stop it in time.
The infringement cost of these booksellers is low, especially with the development of technology, the threshold for making pirated books is getting lower and lower.
However, the cost of rights protection is relatively high, and consumers or publishers need to invest a lot of economic and time costs through legal procedures, while the benefits are relatively small.
Li Zhaoling believes that rights protection actions need more encouragement. In addition to increasing the amount of compensation, lowering the threshold for rights protection, reducing the proof requirements for rights holders, and simplifying rights protection procedures are also important factors.
Although a number of Internet courts have been established and a number of rapid rights protection centers have been established, it still needs to be promoted nationwide to encourage more rights holders to protect their rights through laws.
Regarding how to deal with online sales of pirated books, Zhao Zhanzheng, a special researcher at the Intellectual Property Center of China University of Political Science and Law, suggested that online e-commerce platforms should take more proactive measures to stop piracy and infringement, not just after receiving infringement notices from rights holders. Take action to delete or remove it.
For the behavior of merchants selling pirated and infringing books, the sellers should be punished according to the platform rules and agreement content, such as banning accounts, deducting security deposits, and restricting the same operator from re-registering stores on the platform.
At the same time, copyright law enforcement agencies should also increase administrative enforcement of online sales of pirated and infringing books, take some technical measures to strengthen network monitoring, and promptly investigate such pirated and infringing acts after receiving reports from rights holders. and process.