Today is World Book and Copyrights Day:

Buy or read it free?

Sachitra MAHENDRA

UNESCO had sufficient reasons to make April 23 the World Book and Copyright Day. The death anniversaries of William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Josep Pla, Vladimir Nabokov, Manuel Mejía Vallejo and Halldór Laxness occur on and around April 23.

Britain's Shakespeare and Spain's Cervantes are noteworthy here, since their death anniversaries coincidentally occur on this date and they are widely celebrated for their masterpieces. Although the connection was first established in 1923 to honour the Spanish virtuoso, this was first celebrated in 1995 to promote reading, publishing and copyright. Reading, publishing and copyright are importantly linked and seemingly cannot survive without each other.

The survival of the very same triumvirate, however, continues to be challenged with the high-geared technological progress. So to state, reading, publishing and copyrights have faced a rapid evolution since 1920s. Sri Lanka's reading culture used to be rich, much richer than it is today, as figures indicate. The likes of Piyadasa Sirisena, whose novels accommodate the period between 1904 and 1944, were read by a huge audience of 20, 000. This figure is quite a luxury in today's context. The average number of copies printed for a present book is only 1000.

That too will subject to change depending on genre: 400, 250 for less read genres. Novels, both foreign (translated into the native language) and local, are considered bestsellers after textbooks.

But publishers' ratings change as readers do not remain faithful to their habits. One obvious argument against this fact, lack of reading habit, is that readership could not be completely decided on purchase.

The process involves library reading as well. The number of local libraries exceeds 500. If the publishers can equally distribute the copies to libraries, the number of copies printed should be much higher. Libraries are on increase, though probably in a snail's pace, but the 1000-copies policy doesn't seem to change.

Sri Lanka faces this issue because the local publishing industry is quite stagnating, compared with the internationally adopted publishing strategies. Amazon.com is a widely known brand name for online bookselling.

They have numerous strategies: offer free excerpts of the book, both ebook and hardcopy formats available and check the reader ratings. Why and how has reading changed over time? The periods of 1920s and 2010s could be easily compared and contrasted. Reading was more entertainment back then.

Apart from reading, only a few options were available: radio and open theatre plays were two main factors.

To have an audience of 20, 000 back in Sirisena's era is quite surprising with a lesser population. It is quite apparent on the other hand since the majority did not have many choices. Lack of choice made healthy - rather lucrative for publishers - environs for reading.

The modern reader, on the contrary, has a far wider choice: radio, television, movie theatre and the Internet. Shakespeare classics and Cervante's bulky Don Quixote can now be completely read on Ipad. All ancient classics are freely available on the Internet. It is simply a matter of downloading or copy-and-pasting the text into the word processor.

Widely read religious scripts such as Pali Canons, Holy Bible and Holy Koran are also available freely for the respective followers. It was sweat of brow for the ancestors to research, advanced form of reading. That involved walking library and sniff the dust of old archives.

Whereas for the modern researcher it's mostly a matter of googling the keywords required. Many essential information are available at the reader's beck and call. Publishing of the old days was easy, because only a few could write. Writing and printing process took much longer than it is today. However once a work is publish, its printer or publishers could rest assured of a good audience.

Most writers, for that reason, became quite known. There was no competition, once again, because only a few could write.

The modern world is full of books. Many people have tasted the trade and hence a high competition. Publishers, even international, will now have the risk of survival because of copyright issue.

Many books are freely available without any copyright permission. Books authored by modern writers too could be freely downloaded in certain sites, which have the notorious technical jargon: pirate sites.

Thanks to readers who are not used to read on screen, publishers will have some time till the bailout. Fortunately for readers, and unfortunately for publishers, on-screen reading habits are gradually replacing the traditional method. It is much more convenient now with Ipads and mobile phones with similar facilities.

This problem was not serious earlier. Duplicates of certain books were sold for a song on the pavement. Still the publishers could survive because of the reader's concern for quality. With the gradual switch into on-screen reading, naturally the problem arises whether publishers will be strong enough to weather the trend.

Where would this situation lead the readers and publishers? Will the triumvirate, reading, publishing and copyrights, face a natural death? Probably in the decades to come - or rather the years - the world will be sans publishers or the publishers will be cashless, and the copyrights will be another dull concept tossed against archaic bookshelves.

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