Source: Beijing Daily
"This so-called "Butterfly·Pea Flower - Chinese Classic Children's Poems" has been sold for a year, and the sales have always been very good." Recently, in an interview with a reporter, children's literature writer Jin Bo said helplessly. What Jin Bo is facing is a counterfeit book. In fact, this is not an isolated case. In the children's book market, many best-selling children's books have been counterfeited, which has caused many publishing institutions to complain.
These "modes of transportation" look very similar. The first book is the introduction of "So many vehicles" by Genglin Children's Library.
"Pea Flower" was redesigned
"Butterfly·Pea Flower - Classic Chinese Children's Poems" edited by Jin Bo was planned and launched by Beijing Inspiration Century Book Co., Ltd. But Jin Bo found that there were books with the same title on the Internet for sale, but the editor was not him, and the words "designated by the Ministry of Education" were added to the cover of the book.
Jin Bo carefully compared the catalogs of the two books and found that the order of the articles has not changed. He only added individual authors and articles, and removed his poems with the poet Bai Bing . "Because I am an editor and Bai Bing is a famous publisher, it is easy to find out if you choose our poems." Jin Bo believes that the content of the book of the same name is 80% consistent with the book he compiled, but some of them are different. He felt that it was not easy to find out if the counterfeiter did this, "The title of the book is the same, and the book is the same, which caused confusion for readers to select books." What made Qu Xiaoxia, general manager of Beijing Inspiration Century Book Co., Ltd. angry was that some of the poems added by the editors, such as "April Day in the World" by Lin Huiyin , are not children's poems at all. She believes that this is a manifestation of irresponsibility to young readers.
On Qu Xiaoxia's desk, there was also a set of counterfeit books that made her unable to bear to see. The inspiration company has introduced and published the famous "David series picture books", and a publishing house has also launched the so-called "Harry series picture books". "H David in trouble " was imitated as "Harry, don't cause trouble", and "David Goes to School" is "Harry Goes to School Good" and so on. Qu Xiaoxia believes that some of these counterfeit pictures and words violate the psychology of children and have potential adverse effects on children. For example, "Harry, No" imitates "David, No", in which there is a page in the book "David", where David "turns" a child with a fork and potatoes, and the child's innocence is fully displayed. In the book "Harry", there are forks and scissors, and the little boy waves his knives, completely losing his childlike interest, and his evil interest is revealed.
bestselling books have been counterfeited as industry pain points
"The imitation of their own books is a professional pain point that domestic children's book practitioners are currently unable to get rid of." Zhejiang Children's Publishing House Deputy Editor-in-Chief Wang Yiqing bluntly said that whenever a book is bestselling, books of similar styles will spring up like mushrooms after a rain.
Zhejiang Children's Publishing House has been launching the "Animal Novel King Shen Shixi·Pincai Book Collection Series" for more than ten years. After the previous old version was launched, it was quite popular among young readers, and was optimized and upgraded in 2018. Wang Yiqing said: "Because the author's book authorization is relatively scattered and non-exclusive, other publishers have also launched Shen Shixi's books, but the overall design of the book, especially the most important cover design, is similar to our company's products, and even completely compared with our company's appearance, deliberately making readers unable to distinguish them." She said that a certain art publisher in Northeast published the Shen Shixi series of books in December 2019, and the overall design of the book cover is similar to the new version of Zhejiang Shaoshe. According to her, many publishing houses directly found the cover author of Zhejiang Shaoshe and asked him to draw the cover picture at a relatively higher royalty.
What makes Genglin Children's Library editor-in-chief Ode very troubled is that the three-dimensional toy book "So many vehicles" introduced and published by the Children's Library has at least 6 versions of the imitation products sold well on the market. "These books have not been copied completely, and they have changed their colors and painting methods, but the editor in charge can tell at a glance that they are counterfeit books."
The "Little Bear Baby" series of picture books published by Beijing Pupulan Culture Development Co., Ltd. have also been transformed into "Good Habit Picture Books". Although the title has been changed, the protagonist of the picture book looks really similar to Little Bear Baby.The friends of the original picture book Xiao Xiong include a mouse, a rabbit, a baby elephant, and a raccoon. In this set of "good habit picture books", they are almost "original people" and the style is similar. Lin Yingying, a staff member of Pupulan Cultural Development Co., Ltd., told reporters that although he had sent a lawyer's letter to the other party, the "Good Habit Picture Book" is still being sold online.
Publishing institutions are more difficult to protect their rights
Most of the publishing institutions have troubles to say about counterfeit books. These books have book numbers and are all from regular publishing units. As Wang Yiqing said, "Forgery is not pirated. Generally speaking, counterfeit books will not be copied in the original class, and some elements will be changed, but the overall visual effect looks very similar."
Wang Yiqing also concluded that there are many ways to counterfeit. In terms of opening books, most people will choose the same opening books and sizes; on paper, the same variety and gram weight will be selected; on the printing sheet, it will basically remain unchanged; on the main picture of the cover, the same illustrator will be invited to draw to ensure the similar style; in terms of binding design, the overall style will be similar, and the most important visual elements will be retained, but slightly changed in unimportant details.
Another important point is that compared with original children's books, counterfeit books are much cheaper. The counterfeit version of "Butterfly·Pea Flower - Chinese Classic Children's Poems" is priced at 19.80 yuan, while the original paperback price is 29.80 yuan, and the hardcover version is 39.80 yuan. Qu Xiaoxia said: "After the launch of counterfeit children's books, our sales have declined sharply." According to her estimates, counterfeit books have sold at least hundreds of thousands of copies.
"Design creativity is a good pay, but counterfeit books are 'picked off-the-shelf', so the cost of books is lower, and the discount given to distributors is also lower." Wang Yiqing believes that this will lead to market share diversion, and publishers that insist on originality and innovation will suffer great losses. "This will blow the enthusiasm of originality and innovation, cause vicious competition, and the book industry will fall into a situation where bad money drives out good money."
Wang Yiqing said: "It is very difficult to defend the rights of counterfeit books. The overall packaging or cover design of books is difficult to protect the rights like registered trademarks, and there is also a lack of sufficient support from relevant laws and regulations when protecting rights." In response, many publishing institutions empathized with this, and inspired companies sent people to other places for investigation, but failed, and the lawyer's letter sent was never responded.
Parents should be wary of counterfeit books by buying books
"In order to let Chinese original children's books go out with dignity, we must be wary of imitation, plagiarism and follow-up publishing." Zhang Mingzhou, chairman of the International Children's Reading Alliance, believes that counterfeit and shoddy children's books are flooding the market, lowering children's reading taste, corrupting children's interest in reading, and forming a huge squeeze and forced publishing institutions that adhere to high-quality originality and legally introducing genuine children's books, and there is a trend of bad money driving out good money.
"Parents should be wary of such counterfeit books when buying books." Ode suggested that parents should identify brand publishing institutions and also look at the winning status of the book, such as the International Andersen Award, the Cadillac Picture Book Award, the Xinyi Picture Book Award and other award-winning books, with the quality guaranteed.
Ode also suggested that the report system and CIP center control should be used to curb this phenomenon. The competent department will publicly publicize it to the public. Anyone who finds imitation and pirated books, especially children's books, will immediately report them, and the industrial and commercial taxation and cultural authorities jointly enforce the law, "seal the seller, investigate the relevant chains, and deal with them strictly." He also suggested using big data technology to eliminate similar or similar books. As long as the similarity is more than 80%, it will be called back to the publisher for self-inspection and other investigation. Once the imitation and follow-up trends are established, the publishing agency will be punished. (Reporter Lu Yanxia)
Editor in charge: Zhan Jing
