Arts Views with Thabani H Moyo
WRITING is a cumbersome job. To fill an empty page with words is not an easy job. Every professional writer will tell you that. Writers make their living through writing and selling books.
Some writers self-publish their works and sell them themselves. Other writers find a suitable publish who publish their works and self the works on behalf of the writer. In the latter case writers get royalties from book sells.
The book industry in Zimbabwe is facing a lot of challenges. Zimbabweans might be an educated lot but the irony is that they don’t have a culture of reading and therefore it follows that they don’t have a culture of buying books. Our children have not discovered that reading is fun. Books have a very small market in this country, Zimbabwe.
Most writers and publishers have targeted the education sector as their biggest market. Every writer would cherish a moment that their works are selected for study in schools. The education curricular demands that novels, plays and poetry is studied at each and every level of education. The education sector also needs a lot of books in the form of textbooks.
The current situation on the ground is very bad for writers and publishers. Education institutions like schools, colleges and universities are no longer buying books. Most institutions have transferred this responsibility to the learner. Learners must buy their own literature books and textbooks to enable them to learn in class. This has seen an upsurge in photocopying and scanning literature books and textbooks. Some unscrupulous business people have made piracy and copy right violation in the book industry their major business. These copied materials are then sold to buyers and a very low price.
Photocopying and scanning books means that the owner of the work, the writer is getting nothing from the trade of his work. The beneficiary in this case has not contributed anything in the creation of the work.
The person photocopying and scanning books and selling them to the public is a thief. This thief is selling stolen property, the photocopied or scanned books. This person must be arrested and have his photocopying machine confiscated by the state.
What is mind boggling is that places where bulk photocopying of literature books and textbooks are known but nothing has happened. The law enforcement agents have ignored these places. Writers, owners of works that is being stolen know these places.
Publishers are aware of these activities but have chosen to do nothing about it. This cancer of illegal photocopying books and selling them needs a multi-faceted approach for it to be corrected. All hands must be on the deck.
Government also needs to see that schools are well resourced to buy learning materials in form of books. The 10 rtgs and 20 rtgs that is currently being paid as tuition fees in public primary and secondary schools is very insignificant. This is a contributing factor to this massive criminal activity of photocopying books. If government cannot raise tuition fees then maybe it must procure books on behalf of educational institutions.
If the situation of piracy in the book industry is not checked it will destroy the industry. No writer will continue writing knowing that they will not benefit anything. No publisher will continue publishing and making loses. Those who have made it their duty to steal books through photocopying and scanning must be warned. They must know that their activities are nothing but criminal and one day the arm of the law will get them and they will pay heavily.
Opinions raised in this article are the writer’s own. Thabani H Moyo is a writer, playwright, teacher, theatre director and a theatre producer.
