Mozambican authors point to piracy as great challenge to cultural development

MAPUTO, April 24 (Xinhua) -- Mozambican authors, present at a debate on World Book and Copyright Day in Maputo, pointed to the piracy of their works as one of the big problems in the cultural and academic area in the southeastern African country.

Authors of different categories, cultural figures and publishers told Xinhua that the law exempts universities from duties of tax when making copies for academic use, but reprographies win and are not taxed.

"Encouraging reading and buying of any work can be done in a variety of ways, but we expect authors to be paid for their rights," said renowned traditional singer Inocencio Langa, also president of the Authors Association of Mozambique.

"Often people who sell unauthorized products never get punished or fined," he said.

Honorio Cumbi, a member of the Mozambique Industrial Property Institute, told Xinhua that there is a lot of work to be done to make books available to everyone.

"Looking at the fact in Mozambique, books remain expensive for our abilities, and they are also scarce, not exceeding 5,000 copies per author," he said.

Cumbi said that the illicit use of the authors' works should be punished according to law, but in Mozambique this does not happen.

"The regulation of copyright law does not work as it should do, because people continue to sell music discs as if it were official, they continue to make copies without any regulation," he said. Enditem