Question: Is eBook piracy the next big P2P problem?
- March 31st, 2008
- 6 Comments
Just when the recording industry is getting comfortable with the idea of digital downloads for music, piracy and all, along comes a new breed of online copyright infringement: that of digital books.
Those fantastic eBook readers like the Kindle and that thing Sony wants us to like are a blessing for us bookworms, but it could be a headache for authors. As DRM is circumvented and copies of works make their way onto P2P networks, where will the royalties come from?
The problem isn’t that people want the content for free — indeed, libraries are still around — it’s that copyright law needs to be wholly overhauled to account for modern times. While there’s much buzz about doing just that, for now authors will just have to hope Amazon can out-market services like BitTorrent and make people pay.
mathew (Who am I?)
5 months ago
Depends on the publishers.
They can learn from the MP3 fiasco, and start off by selling us what we want–i.e. DRM-free e-books at reasonable prices.
Or, they can cripple the legit e-books with horrible DRM, so that the pirate copies are worth more.
So far, it looks like they’re taking the latter approach.
Matt (Who am I?)
5 months ago
i don’t think college networks will be filled with students downloading war and peace anytime soon. I would say the age demographics would be way different. Book readers (aside from sweet valley high level) would rather pay for a book or go to the library (ebacsue they can afford either).
Nate (Who am I?)
5 months ago
Doesn’t demand, generally, precede piracy?
Whiskey (Who am I?)
5 months ago
When your “printed-no-you-cannot-photocopy-it” class book goes for like say $45 to $75 and it’s more massive than all versions of the Bible put together, and you can alternatively download it for much much less (considering the dramatic savings to the publisher if they choose to make it available as a download) then the choice is obvious. You get a kindle or any other means to read said book and generate a market for other books as well (since you are there, you can pick up some other ebook).
If the books are cheap, then people will get to the stores and get them… It’s possible that you can even start right now and generate a trend. Use DRM and you will be encouraging crackers.
Us starving students have to be on the lookout for deals like this… I will gladly pay for an ebook version of my classes textbook if it means i can save … say 30 - 50 % off the printed version.
(On the flip side of this note… There are lots of ebooks around there. Just maybe not yet on P2P… There are even ebook versions of books that have no ebook version - which to me kinda solves the carrying around of many heavy books - )…
Vox (Who am I?)
5 months ago
Uhm…ever hear about http://baen.com ? They have been selling DRM-free (SF/F) ebooks for 5 bucks for years now, under a “copy it as much as you want” license. And somewhere in their Free Library (where they give away ebooks for free), Eric Flint talks about how the Free Library and the other ebooks at Baen have affected the selling of his books…and the percentage game there is pretty damn amazing.
Oh, btw…these are brand new books, published by Baen Publishing, and they are books of great authors, like Filnt, David Weber and Spider Robinson.
So…at least one publisher does know how things should be done in the digital age.
PD: Yes, I’ve bought dozens and dozens of ebooks from them.
Charles Wilkes (Who am I?)
5 months ago
Knowing human nature, I’m just waiting until someone sells a DRM remover program much like the DVD copy protection remover programs which are for sale everywhere. It will happen. Nothing publishers can do to make it NOT happen. It’s just a matter of time.
Charles Wilkes, San Jose, Calif.