Op-Ed: Piracy and African Literature: The Blurred Lines Between Ethics and Access

On the 2nd of March, a fresh installment of an old match erupted on Twitter (now X) when a Nigerian archivist, Fortune Amor, shared a folder containing scanned copies of many titles from the African Writer Series. Some rejoiced at the resource because 289 of the 359 titles in the series have been out of print since 2002. But others, like Molara Wood, editor and author, termed it “Piracy on a grand scale…a gross violation of IP (Intellectual Property) by ‘supporters’ of African writing,” which ought to be rewarded with shame and stigma. 

With this line drawn, everyone took their places for another chapter of the great piracy debate. One side argued about the author’s rights, the rule of law, and the concept of an unnegotiable morality. The other was more concerned with literary access, archiving, and the reality of Nigeria's poor infrastructure.

The question refereeing the event: Is piracy a net good or a net bad for African literature and its archiving?

Piracy has two faces, both of which follow a pattern that weaves the human predisposition for the easiest means to an end into infrastructural gaps. When Nigeria first declared piracy a crime in 1986, there was a strong wave of cheaply reproduced books feeding a ‘book famine’. A famine created by the dwindling oil boom, which dragged with it both publishers’ operation models and the disposable income of the primary consumers of African Literature–the middle class. Those enterprises and networks that arose from reproducing low-quality books and selling them cheaply continue to cost copyright holders around ₦918 trillion (about $665 billion) annually. However, commercial piracy is only one kind of piracy. 

Amor was engaging in end-user piracy. This can include anything from file sharing between friends to uploads on websites or chat groups, so anyone can download them for free. Popular websites for end-user piracy, like Annas Archive and Z-library, are repeatedly in legal trouble for distributing content for free. This is why Modupe Daramola, founder of Noisy Streetss Publishing, says she was shocked at finding Amor’s link: “It was so brazenly done. They did it on their main account. With their name and picture. Are you not aware that this is literally a sanctionable crime?” She highlighted that actions like this could discourage rightholders from selling publishing or distribution rights to Nigerians, ultimately reducing future access. While this is a valid possibility and critique, Jesutomisin Ipinmoye, author of How to Get Rid of Ants, believes that the past and future are more readily lost without people like Amor.

“Lost media happens because of publishers. They are not going to republish those books for cheap because they don't think we have buying potential… Most people only know the popular authors in the series, not the ‘smaller’ ones, and so their works don’t get preserved. And a lot of this work carries the bones of future practice for writers.”

End-user literary piracy also feeds an intellectual famine in economies like Nigeria. This famine is caused first by poor educational resources and reinforced by economic inequality. Nigerians online often joke about an ‘Olodo Uprising’, reflecting a global trend in which critical thinking skills are failing, opinions are radically and politically polarized with no room for negotiation, and people are hardly able to empathize or are curious enough to engage with realities outside their world of experience. Although the reasons behind this cannot be reduced to a single factor, scholars have opined that these are products of environments in which reading and art are stifled by a general devaluation of the humanities and a lack of access. And while it is easy to find distasteful examples of the brazenness with which some end-user pirates obtain or distribute e-books, ultimately, end-user piracy shows demand rather than disrespect for authors or a deliberate devaluation of African Literature. 

The Demand for Access and the Path to Legal Solutions

In a survey of over 100 readers of African Literature, 93% of whom live in Nigeria, a staggering 73.5% indicated that they were strongly interested in reading older African literature, but only 11.7% of readers say that these titles are easy for them to find. The majority of these readers (61.7%) indicated that although most of the African books they had read in the recent past were either purchased or borrowed, they had engaged in end-user piracy when they couldn’t afford a book (59%) or couldn’t find where to purchase it (43%). However, after piracy, the number of readers who made the effort to purchase a book (39%) was slightly higher than the number who would never buy a book they had read for free (33%). But undoubtedly, most (70%) prefer hardcopy books, but as Nigerians say, na condition make crayfish bend.

People want to read, and most will try to do it legally, but they are prevented by the economics of access: affordability and availability. While some of the most popular African Writer Series titles can be found in bookstores, they are expensive — the less common ones even more so. The series is mostly out of print, for sale on Bloomsbury or Amazon, or restricted to archives like those in SOAS, University of London, opened only by those magic words– institutional access–which often declines when pronounced from Africa. Isn’t it ironic, then, that a series that was a catalyst for the reclamation of African narratives by Africans and a facilitator of pan-Africanist understanding is accessible in the West rather than in Africa?

All rights remain domiciled in the West. From Heinemann to Zeus Publishing, which bought 100 rights in 2023 for republication but released only 17, and then went on vacation. Othuke Ominiaboh, founder of Masobe Books, says he tried to buy some rights from them but was only offered distribution rights. Distribution rights would mean readers would pay foreign prices plus shipping costs. He declined. 

So, here we are. Piracy-sponsored peer preservation, which Professor Adenekan, Author of African Literature in the Digital Age, calls "positive anarchy."

Professor Adenekan maintains that while end-user piracy is painful as an author, it is unreasonable to take an absolutist moral stance like the one pictured above, because anarchy can address inequality, and inequality is Africa’s reality. 

“If we are not conscious of class dynamics in conversations of access to literature, we will reinvent the same colonial systems that kept Africans out of literature concerning Africa... If we say we don’t want you to have access to this material because it is stealing, but do not speak about who is stealing the ability of these young people to have access, then we have allowed their future to be stolen twice.”

Aside from economic class, there is also social class, like the visually impaired community, whose primary source of African literature isn’t braille but e-books and audiobooks. However, end-user piracy is not always done with the best intentions, and most readers (64.7%) agree that it is mostly or always wrong. But the important question still is: Does it take more than it gives? To this, experienced publishers like Eghosa Imasuen of Narrative Landscape Press and Othuke Ominiaboh, founder of Masobe Books, are in agreement: access brings business.

“I'm not supporting piracy, but from my experience, books that have been pirated have done really well. And I feel it's because of access. Access means sales…People read the book, talk about it, and those who have the money get interested and buy.” Ominiaboh says

“We don't release ebooks unless we have an ulterior motive of making those ebooks, directed or not, serve as adverts for the physical copies. It doesn't undermine their sales within our capacity. We can't even serve the market. If you ask me to print 50,000, where would I get the money? If the ebook serves the rest of the market, then it does what it does,” says Eghosa Imasuen.

Elohor Egbordi, Editor at Quramo Press, agrees with these perspectives, maintaining that while the act of reading doesn’t change just because one is excited to read, it is important to find ways to give back to the author. “Give back in publicity for the book. You can't buy it, but give back somehow; the author deserves that much. You can call yourself Robin Hood, but remember, he was still a thief.”

Highlighting that end-user piracy bridges inequality and ultimately brings customers does not mean asking authors to perpetually martyr their rights for the common good. What it does mean is that the solution to piracy isn’t shaming consumers into uprightness, but making it more convenient to access contemporary and classic literature legally on the one hand, and strengthening law enforcement on the other.

“It was streaming that killed torrent. Once things became easier to get by paying, torrent became too clumsy, too difficult, and too risky.” Imasuen shares.

The Consolidation of Digital Access and the Platform Battle for African Literature

In this regard, publishers are on the move. Masobe Books has launched the Masobe App, which offers readers at least two African books and starts at N1999 per month. The app also includes titles from other publishers, and Othuke says audiobooks are coming soon. In the same vein, Imasuen mentions that Narrative Landscape Press has offered its entire catalog to a soon-to-launch platform called Storypod, which presents stories in a carousel format. 

Daramola says while ebooks and audiobooks are upcoming options, Noisy Streetss is encouraging a culture of book sharing through its marketing events. For Ponmo is a Rave, organized to promote the book Ponmo is Bird That Has No Place in a Cultured Culinary Sky, they set up a book exchange station and partnered with Ouida Books, Masobe Books, and authors like Adesuwa Nwokedi to give away free copies of their books.

*N/B: Affordable is defined as costing less than the average book per month, i.e., N12,000–average price of 10 best-selling books.

Much like streaming killed torrenting by making media more accessible, media catalogs spread across multiple apps are giving free streaming and torrenting opportunities a comeback. Imasuen opines that an actual solution would be a consolidated marketplace. 

 “When distribution is slower than the technology, somebody will jump into that space and fill it up. How many platforms can you have in your phone when somebody can just send you a book on WhatsApp? If you have a multiplicity of platforms, one eventually wins, and that becomes a single marketplace.”

Who will win the platform battle for African Literature? Time will tell. But for now, as publishers like Daramola deal with end-user piracy as a “necessary evil” for a greater good, authors like Jesutomisin Ipintoye, who are more sympathetic to Amor’s archival intentions, are patiently waiting to be pirated themselves:

“The moment someone tells me that people are pirating my work, it means it works, and there’s an audience that can’t afford it but wants it. It would make me feel flattered. So I'm waiting for them to get to it.”