NEW DAILY IN THE WORLD

“Our foreign partners have presumed that copyright violations are common and being committed openly in Vietnam, and that the government and society have been indifferent,” she said.

On April 29, HCMC authorities found about 50,000 illegal Vietnamese copies of current best-selling books during an inspection of three houses in Thu Duc District.

This was a result of investigations done by the Tre Publishing House and HCMC Police. The city’s Department of Information and Communications, the agency responsible for controlling piracy, was informed later to send two officials for the raid.

The team found 1,000 books at the first house, before residents alerted them to two nearby houses where they found another 50,000 or so copies.

The department kept some of the books at its warehouse and some at the warehouse of the Tre Publishing House, while the rest were left in the houses and sealed.

There has been no announcement so far on what the authorities plan to do with books and how they would deal with the Minh Thang Bookstore in Hanoi, which was later found to have stored the books before they were transported to the three houses in HCMC’s Thu Duc District.

Nguyet said concerned agencies have been incompetent in carrying out inspections of pirated books, while the violators always had complicated tricks to avoid detection.

“An average of between 40 and 50 books printed by the Tre Publishing House have been copied illegally every year.”

She said the piracy has, besides the loss of business, also ruined publishers’ credibility among readers, who fail sometimes to distinguish the pirated copies, blaming publishers for low quality books.

Vu Hoang Giang, deputy director of Nha Nam Culture and Communications Joint Stock Company in HCMC, said current measures against piracy are not much of a deterrent.

“The act of faking medicine and alcohol can fetch jail terms or a death sentence, while faking books is subjected to maximum fine of VND30 million (US$1,688),” he said.

“Book piracy causes losses of taxes and damages the authors and publishers but it has been done nearly in the open,” Giang added.

Not enough resources, officials say

The government has not been able to increase the number of persons deputed to inspect piracy, said Le Manh Ha, director of the HCMC Department of Information and Communications.

“Moreover, the department can’t spend money to construct a warehouse reserved for pirated books,” he said.

Ha’s deputy, Nguyen Anh Tuan, admitted that the recent bust of illegal copies in Thu Duc District resulted from the residents’ report, reflecting the incompetence of the officials.

He said the department had sent only two officials to deal with the job for strategic reasons and that they “would learn from the experience.”

The department also failed to reveal their plans to deal with the violators, saying it was information that could not be disclosed to the media at present.

Reported by Do Tuan