Book authors in Kilifi County have called for a review of the country’s copyright laws to protect them and creative artists from intellectual property theft.
The authors lamented that they are unable to fully enjoy the fruits of their creative works due to plagiarism, illegal re-printing, and online uploading of their books in portable document format (PDF).
Speaking at a Malindi hotel during the launch of the Malindi Seaside Writers Circle, a group of budding authors and creative artists, the authors also called for full enforcement of the existing Copyright Act 2001, which they said needed to be reviewed to accommodate emerging trends.
They urged the government to reduce taxes on printing paper and ink to lower the cost of printing books and ultimately reduce book prices, arguing that this would improve the reading culture among Kenyans and encourage more people to venture into authoring books, a field they said was being threatened by the advent of the internet.
Ms Wahu Njoroge, the founder of the Malindi Seaside Writers Circle, decried the rampant vice of book copywriting, adding that some people were re-printing books with different titles but containing the same stolen content.
“I think the government should strictly enforce the copyright law because you will find that the same book can be copyrighted several times with different titles but containing the same content,” said Ms Wahu Njoroge, author of the novels ‘My Mother, My Hero’ and ‘Love in My Veins.’
She explained that she started the writers’ club to assist budding authors who do not know what to do with their manuscripts due to a lack of readily available book publishers in the region. Ms Njoroge has since started her own publishing house in Malindi.
Mr Edward Yesse, author of ‘The History of the Pokomo’ and the newly published ‘Captives for Hire,’ urged the government to lower taxes on printing inputs such as paper and ink to reduce the cost of printing.
“Publishing a book in Kenya is very hectic because it is expensive. Many people have resorted to self-publishing, but even with self-publishing, you must have the money because cost of printing and the price of paper have increased the cost of books,” he said.
He said the down size of self-publishing was that the author has to do everything alone without involving professionals in the field and this usually leads to numerous errors.
“Ultimately, we need to look at the taxes involved in the publishing sector so that we make our books printing manageable. The cost of paper is high, and so is the cost of printing. All these factors make the cost of publishing a book high.
He urged budding authors and artists to join the writers circle where they will be helped with their creative content.
Mr. Yesse wrote the book ‘Captives for Hire, following a January 2012 incident in which his son, Mule Yesse, who was a District Officer in Wajir, was kidnapped by the Al Shabaab militant group, which held him for close to two years.
The incident forced him to seek early retirement from the National Social Security Fund (NSSF), where he was a manager, to concentrate on efforts to have his son, released.
Dr. Nancy Ngowa, a senior lecturer and chairperson of the Department of Languages and Linguistics at Pwani University, decried the poor reading culture among the residents of the Coast Region and lauded the initiative to start a writers’ club.
Dr. Ngowa urged the coastal people to embrace the culture of reading books, which she said was lacking in many. She noted that reading propelled her to be an author.
“These days, the young ones are forever on their phones and this is a culture that needs to be disbanded. We all know that all the treasurers are hidden in the books – the knowledge, the world view, the different perspective that we expect to get from people, even the academic writing,” she said.
