THE ugly head of piracy with razor-sharp teeth continues to wreak havoc in the arts world, crippling and curtailing the growth of artistes.
Efforts by musicians and filmmakers have been severely dented by the scourge and lately authors have also become victims, with photocopies of their books being found on the streets.
For some authors, piracy is less important than obscurity.
It has been argued if there’s one thing that piracy is good at, it’s getting content into the hands of lots of people through very efficient methods.
There are musicians and filmmakers who have gained popularity riding the wave of piracy.
However, for many artistes, piracy means losing sales.
It seems awareness campaigns and proffered solutions to address the scourge are not yielding positive results.
While the relevant authorities are continuing the fight, the scourge is far from being successfully dealt with.
Through shoddy presentation, pirates have managed to re-produce books they sell at ridiculously low prices, prejudicing authors and their publishers.
While the music industry has been hard-hit by piracy, musicians are beginning to find ways to counter the pirates.
For instance, the artistes have resorted to producing low budget CDs that cost the same as pirated ones.
Prior to this initiative, musicians were releasing albums that sold at US$10 per CD while pirates offered the same for US$1.
And now it is time for the book industry to be pro-active in its fight against piracy.
One of the solutions embraced by other countries is to move to the culture of making use of the digital environment.
Writers, according to pundits, must figure out why their works are being pirated and ensure their books are readily available.
Presenting a paper assessing the reading habits in the digital environment at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) University, Admire Moyo highlighted that more students now prefer to use digital media in reading.
“Majority of students acquire information from digital media every day,” he said.
The result clearly shows there is a high rate of digital media use among university students and availing books on the digital platform could curb piracy.
An introduction or development of digital reading habit can mean less books being photocopied and sold on the streets.
A survey conducted by The Patriot Arts in several bookshops in Harare showed that Primary and Secondary school textbooks are the most pirated and cost more in the various official outlets as compared to those found on the streets.
For example, a book pegged at US$12 or US$20 in the bookshop is attracting US$2 or US$3 on the street.
Presently, commercially sold e-books are almost unheard of and many books seem to be only available on the street.
But the moment e-books become available, they may counter the effects of piracy.
According to yet-to-be published author Zach Gono, piracy thrives because consumers have no other option.
“Consumers, especially schoolchildren are failing to find their required reading in the traditional outlets and are forced to find the material on the streets where it is readily available,” he said.
“We must begin, as writers, to release our work digitally.
“A digital release might actually increase sales.Publishers must consider the e-book format as opposed to just focusing on pushing hardcover sales.”
E-books, he said, because of their convenience, would ensure piracy did not harm authors and publishers.
“E-books can be purchased and read near-instantly without a trip to a bricks-and-mortar store or waiting for physical delivery,” Gono said.
“These days, many online book marketplaces and services offer print on demand services, so there is little reason not to release a new book in both e-book and print versions, with the print versions only being printed to each customer order.
“Whether piracy is bad is debatable, and whether it’s good is hard to quantify, but the sure solution is to find ways to counter it as fighting it may not yield desired results (sic).”