There are two main types of pirated books based on printing quality:
1. Low-end pirated books. The overall printing quality is poor and easy to identify. The performance is as follows: poor paper use (paper is thin, yellowish, and gray), uneven ink color, hue deviation, inaccurate overprinting, blurry images, and often tape on the edges of graphics and text. Traces or imposition marks, the finished product is not cut squarely, the binding quality is poor (there are many missing lines, wrong pages and other quality problems), and there are many errors in text and punctuation marks (some typos can reach more than ten in one code), and wrong sentences Continuous articles.
2． High-end pirated books. The overall printing quality is high, not much different from the original book, and difficult to distinguish. It is manifested in: better paper, more even ink color, better hue, more accurate overprinting, clearer image levels, squarer cutting of the finished product, and better binding quality. It's better and has fewer typographical errors.
Generally speaking, low-end pirated books are printed by small printing plants or underground printing plants using low-end equipment. They are produced by some small pirated booksellers in a piecemeal and guerrilla operation. High-end pirated books are printed by relatively powerful pirate booksellers using higher-end equipment, and some even use imported equipment.
It can be said that the current pirated books are still mainly low-end pirated books, and this situation will continue for quite some time, but we should also see a small number of high-end pirated books. Therefore, we should not simply think that "if the printing quality is good, it is not a pirated book, and if the printing quality is poor, it is a pirated book", nor should we simply think that "pirated books must be cheaper than genuine books".
The most accurate way to identify pirated books is to compare the paper, printing, and content with genuine books from publishers of the same edition, and also check the copyright page of the book (the copyright page of the genuine book). The copyright page must include the book's in-print cataloging data, name and address of the publishing unit, book format, edition, etc.) and whether the international standard book number and barcode mark are complete and clear. If necessary, consult the publisher of the genuine book. Of course, if there is an anti-counterfeiting mark, it is still not difficult to identify.
1. Quality:
1. Carefully examine the appearance of the book. Specifically: the first-instance cover. Compared with genuine books, the covers of pirated books often have incorrect colors. They are either so dark and listless, or so bright and voluptuous, and the colors are often mixed. As long as you compare frequently, the difference is not difficult to distinguish. Second, look at the binding. According to publishing industry convention, for a genuine book with more than 200 pages, wire binding should be abandoned and wire binding should be used instead of thread binding, plastic thread binding or perfect binding. However, due to limitations of printing and binding equipment or to reduce costs, pirates still commonly use wire binding for pirated books with more than 300 or 400 pages. Third visit to the printing house. Each publishing house has several fixed printing users, and each printing house also has its own characteristics in terms of paper, ink, and printing. If you pay attention to this, it will help to identify pirated books. Fourth, look at the paper. The book should be printed on both sides. If the paper is too thin, it will be easily mixed with ink, causing the writing to be blurred and difficult to read. Therefore, except for dictionaries, the paper used for genuine books is 52 grams and above. Once you encounter a book with thin paper and the writing on the other side is exposed, you must be careful.
2. Review the content of the book. There are three symptoms in the internal text of pirated books: first, there are many typos, aliases, missing characters, word extensions, and incorrect sentences; second, the typesetting is often not neat, either sparse or dense, and it is visually astringent; third, it looks like a copy. Some pirated books are not typed separately, but are copied from the original book. Although this can avoid text errors and typesetting ugliness, there are many ink dots on the paper and the handwriting tends to be puffy and looks like it was drilled out of a copy machine. Come out with a copy. In fact, no matter how fake it is, there is always a gap between pirated books and genuine books. Therefore, it is best to shop around when buying books.
3. Pay attention to book publishing information. Such as publisher, ISBN, edition, etc. The reason why I dared to conclude that the "Notes on Mountain House" I saw was a pirated book was not just limited to the many typos. Yu Qiuyu's "Notes on Mountain Dwelling" was originally published in "Harvest" in Shanghai, and his "Sorry for Shanxi" and other chapters have been included in Yu's "Fragments of Civilization" (Chunfeng Literature and Art Publishing House) and "Qiu Yu Prose" (Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House) Edition) and other selected editions. For fear of being overpriced by readers, Yu Qiuyu has always refused to collect and publish "Notes on Mountain Dwelling" in mainland China (the book was published in a traditional Chinese vertical version in Taiwan in 1995).
2. Price: Genuine books are all priced uniformly by relevant departments, so the purchase discounts of genuine booksellers are relatively high, and the purchase discounts are almost the same. Therefore, buyers must be sure to purchase books in online bookstores. For some extremely low-priced books, be sure to inquire before buying them. Don’t be greedy for cheap.
3. When buying genuine books, it is best to choose some relatively large and reputable online bookstores, because these sellers generally have more legitimate purchasing channels. If you are not sure whether the book you want to buy is genuine, be sure to ask the seller for information and ask for a guarantee. After receiving the book from the seller, if you find any of the above characteristics of pirated books, you should immediately report and complain to the relevant departments and make a return request to the seller.
The current status and characteristics of book piracy
According to conservative estimates by people in the book publishing industry, the ratio of pirated books to best-selling genuine books is at least 1:1. Due to the piracy problem, publishing houses across the country lose more than 1 billion yuan every year and reduce profits by 20 to 300 million yuan. This should be said to be a very considerable sum.
The current new features of book piracy include:
1. Object changes. Today's piracy targets are no longer simply martial arts novels, celebrity biographies and other best-selling literary and artistic books in the past, but any books with market potential, including various teaching materials, dictionaries, reference books, legal and economic books, etc. , even the newly published "Xinhua Dictionary" and "Cihai" were not spared.
2. Large quantity and wide variety. In the past, the number of pirated books was small and there were not many editions. Now, the number of pirated books far exceeds the number of genuine books, and there are dozens of editions. According to rough statistics from relevant departments, there are several pirated versions of Zhang Kangkang's "Love Gallery" with more than 2 million copies in circulation; more than 30 pirated versions of "Fortress Besieged" published by People's Literature Publishing House have been discovered so far; "Covered Bridge Relics" The number of pirated copies of "Dream" is three times that of genuine books.
3. Fast. In the past, pirated books generally lagged behind genuine books on the market, but now some pirated books are on the market at the same time as genuine books, and are even one step ahead of genuine books. For example, Yu Qiuyu's "A Sigh of a Thousand Years" published by Writers Publishing House, pirated copies and genuine books are almost on the market side by side.
4． Printing quality improves. Some piracy criminals with strong strength and a certain scale also have research institutions specializing in studying genuine books, and have personnel who specialize in analyzing paper, cover design, printing technology, binding technology and anti-counterfeiting technology, making full use of advanced printing equipment, Thanks to technology and craftsmanship, the pirated books printed can be "comparable" to genuine books, almost to the point of being authentic.
5. Specialization and networking. At present, there have been so-called professional pirates who pirate textbooks, examination books, reference books, and literary and artistic books, etc., and they have formed small piracy groups, and there is a relatively unified and scientific organization and management system within them. In addition, new changes have taken place in the way pirated books are sold. Pirated booksellers no longer fight alone like they did in the past. Instead, they make full use of the convenience of existing communications, transportation, and the Internet to form a nationwide network. A one-stop piracy network for production and sales. In this way, once a pirated book is printed, it can be distributed throughout the country in just a few days through layers of wholesale and retail sales.