Copy Shop Crackdown Reveals Copyright Infringements

Copy shops beware. In a crackdown on copyright infringement, two Auckland printing franchises have been caught copying whole books for customers without authority.

Snap Printing East Tamaki and Snap Printing North harbour copied the entire contents of a book – AME Year 13 Calculus Workbook - and sold it to customers for between $33 and $45 per copy.
The printers received infringement notices from New Zealand’s print copyright watchdog, Copyright Licensing Ltd (CLL) and educational publisher, ESA Publications Ltd.
Copying from published works is an infringement of the 1994 Copyright Act and deprives publishers and authors of revenue for the sale of their works.

Managing Director of ESA Publications, Mark Sayes, said copying of whole books that are made available for sale is blatant copyright theft.
‘Shops that copy large amounts of texts or entire books are breaking the law.’
ESA Publications Ltd is publisher of the Calculus Workbook copied by Snap Printing franchisees in Auckland.

CLL’s chief executive, Kathy Sheat says it is important that copy shops consider the copyright issue and make sure that any copying they do for clients does not infringe copyright in the work being copied
‘Sometimes copyright breaches are inadvertent, but when students and other members of the public ask for whole books to be copied, they should be aware that this is highly likely to infringe copyright.”

Copyright Licensing Ltd is a non-profit copyright collective, looking after the interests of publishers and authors in New Zealand.

Information about copyright compliance is available on the websites of CLL (http://www.copyright.co.nz/) and the Copyright Council of NZ Inc. (http://www.copyright.org.nz/).