Thanks to internet it is not so easy for book publishers to survive in market realities. Many books are available in internet and not always in accordance with law and with permission of right holder. One Russian publishing house decided to pay for information on their books which were counterfeited in hard copies. The informant can receive up to 10% from value of counterfeited books.
The total value of all counterfeited books the publishing house estimates approximately in 300 million roubles. The regions where the counterfeited books are disseminated mostly on a large scale are south regions – Rostov, Pyatigorsk, Grozny and Mahachkala. The publishing house has even created a special section on its web-site where it is published list of counterfeited literature, the places where counterfeited books are available and how to identify illegal copies of books.
The publishing house has made a lot of work in order to prevent production and distribution of illegal hard copies, but there are still a lot of illegal products in Russian marketplace. Counterfeit is not so widespread in sector of hard copies. Pirates have most interest to electronic books. “There is no problem with counterfeited hard copies of books in Russian marketplace”, – stated president of Eksmo-AST.
It seems the initiative with reward for information on hard copies is little late. But if for some regions the hard copies are still useful and usual thing, it is very good incentive for improvement of local Russian marketplace and resource of information for enforcement authorities.