Vietnamese publisher sues Lazada for allowing sales of pirated books

Publisher First News has sued the e-commerce platform Lazada, charging it with repeatedly abetting the sales of pirated books and ignoring its warnings. The Ho Chi Minh City-based company announced on Wednesday that it had filed a suit in the District 1 People’s Court against the e-commerce company for allowing merchants to sell fake copies of its bestsellers.

Its CEO, Nguyen Van Phuoc, said the issue had been raised with Lazada for the last 12 months by sending it documents and evidence of counterfeiting. But the subsidiary of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba did not make any effort to stop the selling of the pirated books, and the issue had in fact worsened, he said.

The fakes sold on Lazada cost half the original prices, and his company has received hundreds of complaint letters from customers about them, he said. Some of the fake titles include the self-help classic “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by American writer Dale Carnegie and the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series.

First News allows customers to trade their fake books for originals, but “we cannot keep doing that forever,” Phuoc said.

Lazada Vietnam said in a statement on Wednesday that all merchants on its platform are required to comply with local laws and piracy would be punished according to the law. But it did not make any reference to First News’ allegations. In the suit, the publisher has demanded that Lazada remove all fake books and stop allowing their sale in the future.

First News said last year 686 of its titles were counterfeited and sold on e-commerce platforms. It had organized two public events last year just to furnish evidence against book piracy. It has not revealed its losses due to piracy, but Phuoc said without it the company’s revenues could have been dozens of times higher in the last 15 years.