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Counterfeiting respects no sectors. The publishing and information industries are increasingly being infiltrated by counterfeiters with egregious effects. Counterfeiters are printing, distributing and selling counterfeit textbooks.
Textbooks are meant to be gateways to understanding but increasingly, counterfeit copies are showing up in bookshops, college bookstores, school libraries and online market places.
Counterfeits copies of textbooks are largely produced by scanning originals, and reproducing them through unauthorised printing. But first what are counterfeit textbooks?
Counterfeit textbooks are unauthorised reproductions of legal published and approved textbooks and academic materials. Also, they are made without permission of a copyright holder and often sold at significantly reduced prices compared to the originals.
The counterfeit books often appear authentic complete with realistic covers and official looking ISBNs, but inside the print is faded, chapters are missing, and diagrams are barely legible. To differentiate between original and counterfeit textbooks you have to check among others the ISBN, barcode, binding, pages and paper, width, thickness quality, letters, headband, flyleaves and typos.
An explanation of two or three of the spot check variables suffices. If a book differs too much from other original editions but the ISBN is the same and there are no other marking indicating its an international or instructor’s version, it’s definitely a counterfeit copy. In terms of binding check the curvature of the spine and the colour of the glue used in binding.
Thus, while counterfeit textbooks closely resemble genuine editions, the fakes are identifiable by inferior print and binding quality, holograms that could be wiped off and QR codes that fail authentication.
Over the last 15 years, the Anti-Counterfeit Authority has handled over 23 consumer complaints and seized books worth Ksh 75.3 million and 31 complaints from Intellectual Property Owners with seized books worth 1.19million. From the above, it is emerging that the Authority will receive not less than four complaints against pirated and counterfeited text books with a value of ksh 5million.
The Anti-Counterfeit Authority will this week destroy an assortment of 31091 school textbooks valued at Ksh 15million. The books were seized from one counterfeiter in 2025.
But why is this area important to anyone interested in the future our education and the publishing sector?
Between 2020-2024, Kenya government spent through Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development about 27.9million shillings on school textbooks. Parent may have spent more. To meet the demands of the Competency-Based-Education, more billions have to be spent to ensure textbooks for Grade 10, Grade 11 and Grade 12 are printed and distributed to schools. It is thus crucial that as the country prepares to approve and supply Senior Secondary Schools textbooks there is need to check that publishing sector is not crippled by counterfeiters. Counterfeiters do not pay requisite taxes. It is estimated that Kenya Revenue Authority loses Ksh 2 billion annually due to fake counterfeit textbooks.
In addition, many members of the Kenya Publishers Association and their respective supply chains through bookshops continue to suffer heavy market share losses due to the flooding of counterfeit and pirated books on the market.
In sum, the sale of counterfeit textbooks harms not only the publisher’s reputations but also students and professionals who rely on authentic academic textbooks.
It is thus important that publishers and other rights holders in publishing and other information industries actively engage with the Anti-Counterfeit Authority and support enforcement. But how can they engage with the Authority? Four measures are important. The publishers namely Story Moja Publishers, Jomo Kenyatta Foundation, Longhorn Publishers, Target Publishers, Longman Publishers, Moran Publishers, Spotlight, East African Educational Publishers among many others must undertake recordation with the Authority. Recordation allows them to share unique characteristics of each of their publications to enable timely and efficient enforcement. Secondly, they must actively file complaints and share timely intelligence to seizures and effective prosecution. Thirdly, the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development must require that all publishers and successful bidders for school textbooks invest in authentication measures for their books, and monitor the market continuously. Fourth, all publishers and bidders for supply of certified books must ensure that each genuine edition has a verifiable track and trace hologram and other similar mechanisms.
Maina is the Deputy Director, Research and Policy at the Anti-counterfeit Authority.
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By Omusundi Maina