When we were in Vietnam many years ago, I bought probably half a dozen books to read I'm the train. They were things like Da Vinci Code, some Clive Cussler, probably a Stephen King book or two. Basically popular English titles at the time.

All clearly dodgy copies, with 16 colour covers and poor quality print and paper. All clearly from a place like this as they were being sold EVERYWHERE by street vendors. Given I was only there for a couple of weeks I wasn't concerned about the quality as I wasn't planning on keeping them long term.

Without exception, every book was hugely flawed. Missing chapters, half the book just repeated, pages only half printed, random Harry Potter pages in the middle of Da Vinci Code, etc.

I kept them just for the fun factor. Never did finish Da Vinci Code (as in legitimately). I did read the first half twice though!

There is no such thing as a illigal book

I'm no theological expert, but I believe reading "Long-life sutra destroys sins" cancels out pirating it.

This is a country where you walk(ride) on the streets and can buy sim card with no ID, windows flashdrives with an activator bundled, and visit internet cafés and play any game there directly from repackers

Somewhat ironic that the source material of the bulk of this "bust" is from a work that's IP is in the public domain.

I had no idea this was a thing. So say someone has the proof document of an out-of-print book, could that person go to some company who could reprint the book for the person to be in their personal collection?

Sherlock Holmes

The fuck!? Isn't Sherlock Holmes public domain?