Publishers call for end to bootleg textbooks

Rome police have pounced on a photocopying service close to La Sapienza University selling half-price photocopied "editions" of expensive textbooks.

The investigation began when a partner in a publishing house specialising in university textbooks saw a student walking down the street with a photocopy of a volume published by his firm. When police raided the shop, which makes photocopies and binds degree theses, they found 233 bootleg textbooks ready for sale.

This was the latest raid in an ongoing, nationwide battle against bootleg textbooks. In April, police denounced 25 proprietors of 40 copy centres around La Sapienza. In July, another police offensive resulted in another 28 people being reported and the confiscation of 1,200 bootleg volumes.

In the thousands of copy centres around Italy's universities, and often inside them, textbooks are illegally copied.

Under Italian law, only 15 per cent of any volume may be photocopied, and under new legislation, a fee - about 2.5 pence per page - will be payable. The copy centre has to pass this on to the national authority that regulates and pays royalties.

Italy's legislation reflects the Bern Convention, which, in addition to copyright in general, regulates copying of parts of volumes for personal use.

Ivan Cecchini, spokesman for the Italian Publishers Association, said: "We estimate, conservatively, that in 1999 about £200 million was lost through illegal copies."

Copy centres are legally responsible for what their customers ask to have photocopied. If convicted, they face suspension of their commercial licence for up to a year and a fine of up to £3,000.

But students complain that textbooks are expensive and that libraries in Italian universities are often overcrowded and inefficient.

"Most of the books cost a fortune," said a third-year Rome architecture student. "Our faculty is at one end of Rome, and the library we are supposed to use is at the other end, and usually there is nowhere to sit down. So often two or three of us get together to buy a book and then make copies."

Mr Cecchini said: "The books are expensive because we sell too few, since everyone makes copies. Moreover, Italy's constitution guarantees financial support for poor students, but from the state, not private individuals, writers and publishers, who are just trying to make a living. I really do not want to hear justifications like that."