Piracy threatening Rs 7000-cr publishing industry

NEW DELHI: Book piracy has assumed dangerous proportions and poses a major threat to the Rs 7,000 crore publishing industry in the country, Federation of Publishers and Booksellers'' Association in India says.
The scourge of piracy is extensive involving crores of rupees of investment and returns with pirated items even exported to neighbouring countries, according to FPBAI.
"Books under all categories, be it fiction, non-fiction, text books or technical and scientific books are being pirated".
Pirates, who follow traditional business practices, have an established distribution network and also a huge unorganised printing sector.
"In the year 2000, a survey conducted in Delhi market found 85 of 110 retailers selling pirated books," Sukumar Das, President of FPBAI, says.
N Subrahmanyam, Managing Director of Tata McGraw-Hill and Chairman of FPBAI Anti-Piracy Committee says that apart from netting huge margins, piracy costs the exchequer dearly.
"Piracy robs the society. It denies the author his genuine income for creative activity. It denies the government its tax revenues. It applies both to piracy and photocopying," he said.
Subrahmanyam asserts that the piracy affects the quality of education adversely.
India is known for its high-quality professionals all over the world and the dilution in quality harms the country''s good name, he says.