'The President’s Keepers' scandal: Is there ever an excuse for piracy?
Have you asked for or been sent a pirated copy of the book 'The President’s Keepers'? Will you be reading it?
Listen to the full podcast or read the full blog below:
In the last few days, a PDF version of the Jacques Pauw bestseller 'The President’s Keepers' has been circulating on WhatsApp.
It seems that the public were concerned that the book would be pulled from the shelves and so a pirated copy was spread virally. There has been ongoing commentary about the book on social media and the author has even stated that if you cannot afford to buy the book, then he gave his blessing to read the pirated version.
He did preface this by
saying that if you could afford to pay for the book then it would be preferable
to downloading the PDF.
Ultimately, due to the contents of the book, the public may feel justified in downloading a pirated version. Generally, any kind of copyright infringement is not something that should be encouraged in any circumstances because of the damage that it does to the creative industry.
Unauthorised copies of books, pictures, movies, and music robs the creator (and of course the publishers) of royalties.
The social media space also makes it so much easier to do so and thousands of copies of the book were downloaded over WhatsApp. Rather borrow the book from somebody… there are enough legitimate copies around.
Pauw’s generosity is commendable and he can be rewarded by people buying copies while they are on the shelves.
What are your thoughts on the book?
Verlie Oosthuizen
Shepstone & Wylie Social Media Law Department