Loopholes in curbing piracy

LAHORE: Over the past 48 years, the Pakistan Textbook Board (PTB) has not successfully prosecuted anyone who has been accused of piracy, even though they have pressed charges against at least 30 people.

The PTB accused 10 individuals of piracy between 1962 and 2008, while registering another 20 FIRs over the plast two years.

Publisher Malik Waqar accused PTB officials of being reluctant in taking action against unregistered publishers as most of their senior officials were “actively engaged in promoting piracy”.

He said that officials often pursued binders and booksellers, instead of taking on the real culprits. Waqar said that thousands of pirated books were circulating in the local market, adding that the PTB officials were not even bothered about the situation.

He alleged that thousands of pirated books were being published in collaboration with senior PTB officers.

For their part, board officials blamed police officers of delaying investigations. Policemen in turn accused the PTB staff of incompetence.

PTB is an independent organisation of the Punjab government which prepares schoolbooks in line with the national curriculum. It is supposed to publish books only through registered publishers. These books are then distributed to schools and bookstores.

The PTB Regulation Ordinance of 1970 declares piracy to be a non-bailable offence and a person convicted of piracy is liable to a one-year jail term.

The ordinance was an improvement on Sections 66 and 67 of the Copyright Act of 1962, which declared piracy to be a bailable crime.

Police officials said that most PTB field staff members had no knowledge about laws pertaining to their own department and pushed officers to press charges relating to counterfeiting. They added that PTB officers failed to invoke the 1970 ordinance and did not pursue cases after lodging the First Information Reports (FIRs).

Afshan Zafar, the secretary of PTB, told The Express Tribune that the police often failed to collect evidence to effectively prosecute offenders. She stated that the SHOs often easily granted bails. She said that the legal department had confiscated machinery and accused several publishers of piracy only to have police officials release the perpetrators and their equipment.

Acknowledging mistakes on part of the PTB officials, she said that that the board was devising an alternative strategy to eliminate the culture of piracy from the province.

Chairman PTB Sohail Saeed denied the charges and said that he had lodged FIRs against at least 20 officials since assuming charge.

He said that the board was planning to make it mandatory for all books to have stickers to authenticate that they were not pirated.

He said that he was in touch with a renowned Swiss company.

Saeed said that any books found in the local market without the sticker would be confiscated.

He stated that he also had plans to award cash prizes to informants who helped the PTB discover unregistered (pirate) publishers.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2010.