Dear Editor,

FOR SOME time now I have been visiting lots of bookstores and markets buying books and published materials for my children and myself.
I note with a great deal of interest that most books today that are being sold in our markets and book stores are photocopied books; that’s a violation of copyright laws, both nationally and internationally.
I observed that books such as: Junior English, First Aid in English, CXC text books in every subject area, books by Caribbean writers like V. S. Naipaul, Derek Walcott, Ian McDonald, Martin Carter, Wilson Harris and the long list goes on and on when it comes to ‘book piracy’ and our past and present governments have done nothing about it. I am scared to bring my books which have been published abroad and launch them here, because my first book published here was pirated by many schools and store-owners and it’s hard to track down everyone and if you take them to court, you can lose your case because the copyright laws are not enforced here. Our writers here suffered a lot like me because we have only four newspapers here and that makes it hard to employ our writers to get jobs. Even many agencies hardly have job positions for writers and editors. I say this from my personal experience and most papers pay columnists very cheaply or don’t want to pay them because many politicians write columns here for free; that makes it very difficult for Guyanese writers like me.

Why is copyright laws not enforced after 50 years of Independence?

We have copyright laws in Guyana, but they are not enforced. If they were enforced, then the owners of these stores selling photocopied books would have been picked up by the police, they would have been sent to prison or pay some heavy court fines as in Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados and many big nations.
I also see now the piracy of CDs and DVDs has now become a normal business in this country from the very big store-owners to sellers in the streets.
Many young children are dropping out of school just to earn a living by selling pirated DVDs and CDs.
It’s very sad to know that writers’ text books or any other books of poetry, fiction, etc are being sold as pirated photocopied books in the streets and in the stores and they cannot do anything about it.
It’s sad to know because the writer will take years to write a book and will invest a huge sum of money to get his/her book published, then some high-class, white-collar thief will buy just one copy of the author’s original book and photocopy thousands of the author’s books and sell them at half their value.
It’s very sad to know that many of our Guyanese singers will take years to compose their songs on a CD, travel out of Guyana to get their songs recorded, then suddenly their CDs are being sold in the streets and CD shops for $200 and seven for $1000.

What is really happening to the laws of our country? On every corner we can see laws are broken everyday by corrupt people in our society. What is copyright? Does it apply to our country?
‘’Copyright is a type of protection provided by law to authors of original works of authorship, inclusive of literary, drama, musical, artistic and some other intellectual works.’’
Guyana is a signatory to the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention. In addition, other copyright legal provisions are enacted in the Copyright Act 1956 of the United Kingdom to which Guyana acceded in 1966.
The problem, however, is that these copyright provisions are not enforced in Guyana. Guyana is among 121 countries that were party to the Berne Convention on March 2, 1997. Since Guyana is a signatory, why is it not being enforced?

Why is Guyana a signatory of a convention she has no intention of implementing? It’s about time our law- makers try to have an understanding of copyright laws to protect our authors, singers, etc.
This law must be passed in parliament and all pirated photocopied books, exam papers, DVDs, CDs must be removed from the shelves in every store and market stall in Guyana.
At CARIFESTA, lots of books were launched, but it’s sad to see these books being photocopied and sold at book-stores and markets for half price. Guyana is not a good place for writers to launch their books.
It looks bad when a Caribbean writer visits our country to see his/her book being sold as a photocopied book.
Since we are a member of CARICOM, then we must follow and adhere to the principles of other CARICOM states.
What we need in Guyana is a publishing house or a good printing press at the Ministry of Education to re-publish books written by Caribbean authors that will be easily available to students at a reduced price.
In an interview some time ago with Hansib Publisher Arif Ali and Petamber Persaud about copyright, Mr. Ali, publisher of Hansib, said that he can publish text books cheaper for Guyana if our Government can work with him. Even singer Dave Martins said that copyright laws must be enforced in Guyana, because it will put more revenue into the Government’s treasury.
What we need in Guyana is a writers/authors union to represent writers, meaning they can take a store-owner to court for selling their books and that store-owner will have to compensate the writer financially if found guilty. The same should apply to artistes.
This looks like a long hard road for us to travel, but it can be done if we work together to enforce the copyright laws in our country.

Yours faithfully,

Rev. Gideon Cecil