I talked earlier about the drop in revenues and I provided figures over a dozen years. Since 2012, there has been a clear increase in drops—in other words, an accelerated decline in sales in the book industry. There was recovery in 2017, and we have since noted that the situation has become more stable.
Is there a correlation to be established? Perhaps, but it is certain that piracy, in all its forms, harms the book sector, the book industry, Canadian books, but also imported books. Here's an example. There are companies in the distribution sector that import books published in France, scientific books that are imported in small quantities of 100 copies or 200 copies and are intended for certain colleges in the regions, for example, where specialized fields are studied. Those are expensive books.
Photocopies and piracy mean that ordering those books is not worthwhile. A distribution house can manage a small order of 200 copies for a school because it knows that the copies will be sold. However, when the sales drop, it is no longer profitable for those schools to order them, and as a result, the books become unavailable in French. People from colleges buy books in English.
That is also one of the traps of piracy in the scientific field, in particular, where the production of books in French decreases until, one day, it is no longer profitable. We may be talking about domestic products or even imported products, and that clearly creates unfair situations for colleges and universities.