Here is an Agence France-Presse article from 2018 about what was then a thriving trade in pirated books in Morocco. Somehow we missed it then, but one wonders what the situation is now.
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Thriving trade in pirated reads vexes Moroccan bookshops
Tuesday, 02 Oct 2018
With a backpack filled with pirated books, Khalid wanders the streets of Rabat peddling cheap reads – part of a flourishing black market eliciting howls of protest from Moroccan bookshop owners.
“It’s true that it’s not legal, but the price of these books attracts readers,” says Khalid, 25, who hawks his wares at cafes in Morocco's capital.
A little more than a year ago, he sold pirated DVDs, but Khalid says that market was hit when it became possible to watch films on a smartphone.
One of a large number of young Moroccans working informally in a country with high youth unemployment, he quickly found bookselling the only way to make a living.
Along the main streets of Rabat’s historical centre, dozens of other street vendors sell books in Arabic, English and French.
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