Dear Editor,
For some time now I have been visiting bookstores and stalls in the markets buying books and published material for my children and myself. I note that many books on sale are photocopies of published works. That’s a violation of the copyright laws both nationally and internationally. For example there is Junior English, First Aid in English, CXC textbooks in every subject area, books by Caribbean writers like VS Naipaul, Derek Walcott, Ian McDonald, Martin Carter and Wilson Harris – and the list goes on and on, but the Ministry of Education does nothing about it.
The copyright laws are simply not being enforced. If they were enforced then the owners of these stores would have been picked up by the police and have to pay some heavy fines, such as happens in Trinidad, Jamaica, Barba-dos and many big nations.
I also see that the piracy of CDs and DVDs has now become normal business, from the large store-owners to the vendors on the streets. Many children are dropping out of school just to earn a living by selling pirated DVDs and CDs.
It’s very sad to know that a writer who sees his/her book selling as a pirated photocopy cannot do anything about it. It’s sad to know because a writer like myself will take years to write a book and will invest over a million dollars to get it published, then some white-collar thief will buy just one copy of the original and photocopy thousands, selling them at half price. It’s very sad to know that many of our Guyanese singers will take years to compose their songs, travel out of Guyana to get them recorded, then suddenly their CD is being sold on the street and in shops for $200 each and 7 for $1000.
What is really happening to the laws of our country? On every corner we can see laws being broken every day by corrupt people. What is copyright? Does it apply to our country?
“Copyright is a type of protection provided by law to authors of original works of authorship, inclusive of literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and some other intellectual works.”
Guyana is a signatory to the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Conven-tion. In addition, other legal provisions are enacted in the Copyright Act 1956 of the United Kingdom which still applies in Guyana. Why is Guyana a signatory to a convention she has no intention of implementing and incorporating into the laws of Guyana? It’s about time our lawmakers try to have an understanding of copyright laws to protect our authors, singers, artists, etc. This law must be passed in parliament and all pirated books, exam papers, DVDs and CDs must be removed from the shelves in every store and market stall in Guyana.
A person who photocopies a book to sell it is just like a thief or a robber. At Carifesta lots of books were launched, and it’s very disturbing to see all these books are being photocopied and sold in bookstores and markets for half price. Guyana is not a good place for writers to launch their books. It looks bad when a Caribbean writer visits our country and sees his/her book being sold in the form of a photocopy. Since we are a member of Caricom we should adhere to the principles of other Caricom states. What we need in Guyana is a publishing house or a good printing press at the Ministry of Education to re-publish books written by Caribbean authors that will be easily available to students in our schools at a reduced price. In an interview some time ago with Petamber Persaud and Hansib Publisher Arif Ali, the latter said that he could publish textbooks cheaply for Guyana if our government would work with him. Even singer Dave Martins said that the copyright laws must be enforced because this would put more revenue into government’s coffers.
Today I only see original books selling in Austin’s Book store and a few others. Book piracy caused Universal Bookstore to close down, and other stores too are closing. What we need in Guyana is a writers/authors’ union, which could represent writers and take a store owner to court for selling pirated copies of their books, and the same should apply to singers and artists. This looks like a long hard road for us to travel, but it can be done if we work together to enforce the copyright laws.
Yours faithfully,
Rev Gideon Cecil
