Shoot me a pirate, they kill literary creativity

Piracy remains one of the biggest challenges facing the publishing industry in Kenya today.
Not so long ago, a publisher confiscated 23,000 copies of a Swahili novel that had been pirated by... hold your breath... his printer! Despite attempts by other industry players to publicise the matter, the affected publisher opted for a settlement with the offending printer. But today, the publishing industry made a decision, during its Annual General Meeting, to blacklist the printer and others who were named during the meeting.
And on this one, I believe writers and publishers fight from the same corner. When one's books are pirated, this means that the writer will not benefit from his creativity while the publisher will lose out on his investment. The only person who gains is the pirate but he gains by riding with impunity on the books of people who have laboured honestly to make books possible.
What is more galling is that mainstream printers are engaged in the malpractice yet one would assume that these are the institutions that should be at the forefront of protecting their businesses with publishers.
But by making the decision to stop doing business with rogue printers, the publishers are sending a clear and unequivocal message that it will no longer be business as usual. You steal from me and the association members will stop doing business with you. it is a simple choice really.
The next stop now will be to deal with booksellers who stock pirated books. Once the rogue printers have been run out of town, the writing will be on the wall for booksellers especially if publishers can agree to share information on who are the culprits. Already, the small scale booksellers who display their books on the streets have started staying away from pirated books after they were threatened with arrest. Now the big boys are in the cross hairs.
Even as we encourage readers to buy books, we must add the rider that all of us - reader included - will be much happier if we bought the genuine article. After all, most literary books are not so costly as to be unaffordable.