11:37 PM / 10.19.09 / MONDAY

Gestalten Fights Chinese Piracy

As the Frankfurt Book Fair put the focus on China as this year’s Guest of Honor, Gestalten felt obligated to call attention to a substantial problem that is sullying a great publishing culture that arguably invented printing: the piracy of books and copyrights in China. 

Gestalten is a German publisher based in Berlin and, as such, a member of the German publishers' association Börsenverein. Chinese piracy seriously affects our business, but when we asked the Börsenverein to support our battle against it, we were told to contact a British publishers’ association because our books contain English text. 

At the Frankfurt Book Fair, we exhibited a selection of our books alongside the respective copies pirated by China, in hopes to make it clear that piracy is a real problem for publishers of every nationality that cannot be ignored in any forum that deals with China. 

We’ll continue our efforts to protect the interests of our authors and artists well as our law-abiding Chinese distributors and other Asian partners: fight piracy in China and everywhere, respect copyrights and encourage creativity!