– in the wake of injunction
In the wake of an injunction obtained by several publishers, the thriving bootleg textbook industry, from which government had hoped to continue to source its supplies, appears to be on the verge of closure as several sellers have cleared their shelves of the bogus copies.
They include T and J on Croal Street opposite Demico House, Giftland OfficeMax on Water Street and Gandhi’s Store on Water Street.
They were served with injunctions to cease reproducing, selling, exposing for sale, exhibiting or dealing with infringing copies.
The injunction was granted in the Commercial Court by Justice Rishi Persaud on Tuesday.
Yesterday afternoon when Stabroek News visited the stores their once well stocked shelves were cleared. Scantily displayed were children’s colouring and storybooks and stationery. Stabroek News spoke with officials of those stores who accounted for their decisions to stop selling the copied books. None wanted to go on record.
However, one of the major stores which sold the books said that as owners they would not feel the brunt of the effect since the majority of their customers were “poor people.
“I make a dollar if I do or don’t sell the books. I don’t have school-aged children either but I am very worried for the average man who we all know cannot afford to buy these books. They don’t mention in the papers that many times the books on the lists given cannot even be found… I will, I must say, follow the law… This is it for me in this area,” one store owner said.
At another bookstore the sales staff expressed anger and said that given that stocks had now been drastically reduced they are left to worry about their employment. “This is what is give we a dollar. How much people you think will come to buy these things [stationery] when most people stock up already? We is cater for poor people and this is a blow to them and to we as workers,” a female sales clerk said.
The granting of the High Court injunction has, however, not gone down well with the parents this newspaper caught up with at the stores, who said that they depend on the much cheaper books in the hope that their children will be successful. “We know this is wrong yes, but can Stabroek News provide us with cheap books?” one father questioned.
He had interrupted the discussion between this newspaper and a store owner to ask for a literature text for his daughter, who was at his side.
A mother who went to Giftland Office Max uttered expletives when she was told that they would no longer be selling the pirated texts. When this newspaper tried getting a comment from her she didn’t spare us her tongue.
Lawyer for the plaintiffs, Andrew Pollard, said that his clients’ decision to move to the court followed repeated unsuccessful efforts to seek redress through dialogue with the Guyana government.
