THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A 'book piracy lobby' is active in Kerala, where even the latest books are made into PDF in violation of copyright and delivered to readers online at a low cost.
You can read books on Telegram and sites for half price. Some are free. Not only novels and short stories, even NCERT books are available on these sites.
Advances in technology and the use of smartphones have led to the rise of book piracy. The book theft lobby's capital is the income it receives from advertisements when the reader opens the site. People under 30 years of age and foreigners are behind the lobby. The marketing is through Instagram with the promise of over 120 books for just Rs.99.
Most of the readers of pirated books are expats. Some people think that if the books they buy at a high price are not good, it will be a loss of money.
There are also those who print the book on substandard paper without the permission of the author or publisher and sell it at a low price. This is big business.
While reading books on Telegram and WhatsApp, one can become susceptible to viruses and a victim of cyber scams.
"Reading" is theft
Those who steal gold and money are criminals. Likewise, those who read pirated books are also criminals. 65 percent of readers in Kerala read like this. They do not realize that by this act of infringing the author's and publisher's copyright, they are also becoming a part of book theft.
Under the Indian Copyright Act, 1957, distribution and reading of PDF, audio and video formats of a book without the author's consent is punishable by imprisonment for three years and a fine of up to Rs 3 lakhs.
Book piracy