Unofficial books are sold everywhere
On Facebook, when searching for keywords for book sales, you can easily find many groups with hundreds of thousands of members. In particular, many hot book stores on the market are advertised by sellers at a discount of 50 - 80%, selling books by scale, selling in cheap combos with the reason of "cleanliness", handling inventory...
Many smuggled books have not been quality-inspected, with spelling errors, poor cover quality, paper and printing ink. However, many places selling fake books still process them sophisticatedly, print them neatly, the quality of the paper is not much different from real books, the edges of books are sharp and colorful. If you only look at photos online and buy them without genuine books to compare, it will be difficult for readers to distinguish between real and fake.
As science technology develops, book copyright violations become increasingly complicated with the emergence of websites, groups, and private channels to share PDF books and circulate unofficial versions. Many social networking sites also publicly advertise scanning and photocopying services for books upon request at prices only 30-50% of the original book price.
Many people are excited to buy their favorite books at cheap prices without knowing that they are smuggled. best-selling books such as Dac Nhan Tam, Mui Dung Sinh, Harry Potter, Doraemon... were widely forged. Recently, historical books such as Ho Ky Nguyen Thi Binh: Family, friends and country, Nhat ky Dang Thuy Tram... have been illegally printed and sold at cheap prices, affecting the psychology of people interested in wartime stories.
At the Conference on deploying publishing and distributing publications in 2024, Master Pham Thi Kim Oanh - Deputy Director of the Department of copyright, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism - pointed out that many people still buy cheap books even though they know that they may be smuggled books, fake books, or books that violate copyright. There are still people chasing profits; those who exploit and use books on the internet are not aware of their responsibilities and obligations regarding copyright.
Book copyright protection in the digital space
Writer Nguyen Thi Viet Ha once shared that she was often violated by individuals or organizations, sometimes just a few sections, larger than a work and even a thick book that was illegally printed and sold on the market. The writer believes that this is an uncultured behavior, not only "blatantly stealing" the author's creative efforts, but the original work may no longer be original, being sua doi, distorted, affecting the image and reputation of the author and publisher.
According to research data from Media Partners Asia, in 2022, Vietnam will rank third in the region (after Indonesia and the Philippines) in terms of the rate of copyright infringement in the digital space. per capita, Vietnam ranks first, with about 15.5 million illegal viewers. It is worth mentioning that the forms and methods of copyright infringement are extremely sophisticated and constantly changing, negatively affecting the reputation and development of the Vietnamese publishing industry.
Mr. Nguyen Nguyen - Director of the Department of Publishing, Printing and Distribution commented that publishers and authors are facing many difficulties due to new challenges in technology, the development of communication forms and e-commerce in cyberspace.
In fact, the Publishing Law, the Intellectual Property Law and related sub-law documents have been developed relatively completely to protect book copyright. However, the situation of copyright infringement in Vietnam is still quite complicated, and solutions cannot be thoroughly handled.
Not only that, tracing organizations and individuals selling smuggled books online is difficult due to the anonymous features of social networks. Not only buyers but also publishers are affected by the problem of fake books and smuggled books being advertised for sale on cyberspace.
