Chinese Thiefa

Not sure if you like reading, but when you read a book,

have you ever doubted it might not be published by the original publisher?

Fake products are probably the most well-know Chinese specialties

recognized by foreigners, remember the Street Invasian column from our issue 1?

The following books are originally released by German publisher. Thank you

Johann for dropping me this news. Obviously the left hand side belong

to the german and the right are produced by the Chinese.

Poor Gestalten:

On Chinese Piracy

China was the Guest of Honor at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair

and a wide-ranging program titled “Tradition and Innovation” presented

various aspects of Chinese culture and literature..

Because the topic was ignored in the official event schedule despite our efforts,

Gestalten made an unofficial contribution and presented an exhibit

that highlighted an area in which some Chinese publishers are particularly

innovative: the piracy of books and copyrights.

Gestalten rented a glass case in the foyer of exhibit hall 4.1 in which we displayed

copies of our own books next to disarmingly similar pirated Chinese copies.

Included were our internationally best-selling logo anthologies Dos Logos and Tres Logos,

our collections of contemporary illustration Illusive and Illusive 2 and our

documentation of cutting-edge furniture and interior design Furnish.

As an internationally respected publisher of visual content, Gestalten must also

protect the rights of the artists with whom we work.

Gestalten is a German publisher based in Berlin and a member of the Börsenverein

des Deutschen Buchhandels e.V. Unfortunately when we asked the Börsenverein to help

us in our battle against Chinese piracy, a contact there told us that, because our books

are mostly published with English texts, the Börsenverein didn’t feel responsible,

but gave us contact at a British publishers’ association.

With this exhibit of actual Chinese pirated books, we hope to have made it clear

that piracy is a real problem for publishers of every nationality that cannot be ignored

in any forum that deals with China.

Source : the victum