Only a few hours after Dar El-Shorouk published Ahmed Mourad’s novel Land of God, the e-copy ripped through the social media. The administrators of the writer’s Facebook account talked about the crime of pirate books, considering it an immoral act threatening the industry and risking the rights of authors and publishers. However, the readers’ comments did not entirely concur, raising many questions about using literature and art as commodity, creative commons, and the right to knowledge in addition to a general outcry over high book prices.

Only a few hours after Dar El-Shorouk published Ahmed Mourad’s novel Land of God, the e-copy ripped through the social media. The administrators of the writer’s Facebook account talked about the crime of pirate books, considering it an immoral act threatening the industry and risking the rights of authors and publishers. However, the readers’ comments did not entirely concur, raising many questions about using literature and art as commodity, creative commons, and the right to knowledge in addition to a general outcry over high book prices.

No sooner had the debate started about e-pirating than a forged paper version of the novel appeared on Al-Atabah sidewalks at a cover price of EGP 15 (US $1.70) while the price of the original was EGP 55 (US $6.2) reduced later to EGP 50 ($US 5.6)

Any book for three Egyptian Pounds

A few meters away from Al-Atabah metro station stand a number of booksellers behind huge piles of books. Some of them have a fixed cover price of three Egyptian pounds regardless of length or content, and many of the books look ragged but still readable. If you are lucky, you may be able to find a rare book.

Among them sits “Uncle Ali” on a chair near his mattress. Unlike the others, he is not shouting and his books look tidier than those of other vendors. They are classified by theme: history, novels, poetry, science and finally books in foreign languages. In front of these collections are some of the best sellers: Youssef Zeidan’s Azazel, Ahmed Murad’s Blue Elephant, Mohammed Sadiq’s Hepta and others. On top of each book stack, there is piece of paper with elegant handwriting showing the old price crossed out and the new price, which never exceeds EGP 20 (US $2.3). The covers are the same as the original books but smaller and with dull colours.

Cheap printing

“We print these books ourselves,” says Uncle Ali. “These books are too expensive for a large group of readers who come here to get “forged” copies in order not to miss the books.”

According to Uncle Ali, many printing houses with obsolete machines exist in Al-Atabah, Moski and downtown. Most of them print primarily university books, but experienced vendors know the most popular items and their original prices and have started to reprint them, especially in the past decade.

Terms like “intellectual property” and “publisher/author rights” sound ridiculous for the owners of bastas (pavement shops). A young man near Uncle Ali’s basta said: “These books are available online and anybody can download them.” He added that some people do not like to damage their eyes reading off their mobile phones and that these books provide a cheaper alternative.

Correspondent’s attempt at forgery

I asked some people at the basta where I could find a place to print a book off my tablet and they immediately referred me to a printing house in Moski near the police station.

With the vendors of second hand clothing and appliances around, the dirty green door of the printing house looked like a monument. I entered and went down the stairs to a dark, stuffy basement. I was received by an old hunchbacked man named Abu Yasser who immediately asked “can I help you sir?”

I told him I had a book on my tablet that needed to be printed but I had no idea how or how much it would cost. He asked if I had the book on a stick, a question that did not fit to our surroundings. I told him the book was on my tablet and he led me to a dim room and asked me to sit and download the text onto a laptop there.

He explained that even if we failed to strike a deal, there would be other potential clients for the same book. I asked him how much it would cost me if I wanted to print out one copy and he said that the minimum number of any order is 100 copies and that the average cost of a 150-page copy does not exceed five pounds (US $.56).

Abu Yasser explained that bookstore owners sometimes ordered between 1000 or 2000 copies of specific books. Books like Hepta were ordered several times and he himself printed thousands of copies with the price not exceeding ten pounds. “the same content is sold at a lower price. The quality of paper is not a big deal for the readers,” he said.