Digital Piracy Hits eBook Industry

http://thisthatotherthing.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/digital-piracy/
Digital piracy that has plagued the music industry for the last ten years has now hit the eBook industry.  We’re talking major numbers from a major author.   When Dan Brown’s novel “The Last Symbol” went on sale in September, it sold more eBook editions for the Kindle than it did for the hardback edition.  However, almost immediately it appeared in file sharing-sites such as Rapidshare and BitTorrent.  Within days, it had been downloaded for free more than 100,000 times.  Ouch!  I admit, I know much more about digital music protection than I do eBook protection.  Not because I am into music piracy, but I am into digital music and kind of iffy about eBooks.  I thought the Kindle was supposed to have good rights protection in place.  Some publishers think that the piracy issue is overstated since they claim “that consumers who purchase an e-reader buy more books than those who stick with traditional bound volumes. Amazon reports that Kindle owners buy, on average, 3.1 times as many books on the site as other customers.  Amazon reports that Kindle owners buy, on average, 3.1 times as many books on the site as other customers.”

That may be true, but what does that have to do with anything?  100,000 copies is a heck of a lot of lost revenue for both publishers and authors.  And you can bet your bottom dollar that this trend will multiply.  While the rise of eBook purchases may represent a paradigm shift in book sales, it also indicates that the book publishing industry has entered into the messy world of digital piracy.  My advice, learn from the music industry and get ready to sue like there’s no tomorrow!
Information was gained from CNN at http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/01/ebook.piracy/index.html

eBook Readers and Student Text Books

While I have never been a big advocate of eBook readers, I have found value in them. The value I have found tends to be more or less, the opposite of what the author in this article states. If I had the desire to read the epic novel, “War & Peace,” I would want to read it in a paper copy and then have it to place in my library. Back in 2000 when I started at Rose-Hulman, I was given the duty of experimenting with numerous eBook readers. The conclusion I came to then, I still hold today. I don’t see them replacing the type of book you would want to read cover to cover, at least not for most people, but I do see their advantages as a means of delivering text books to college students. The author of the article states that text books purchased for a class should be held onto when the class is over as part of their education. It’s an academic thing. He finds the idea of students not highlighting or annotating a text book so as to not degrade the resale value appalling. I can certainly relate to this notion as I held onto almost all of my text books. There were a few here and there that I sold, but most I kept. But the fact of the matter is, text books are extremely expensive, bulky, heavy, and for general education classes, will more than likely never be opened again. With students strapped for cash, it only makes sense to sell back these books that otherwise may one day be used as door stops or as I have used them, to prop up the head of my bed during times of sinus infections so I could breath at night. So what I said nine years ago, I still say today. Ebook readers would make a nice alternative for student text books. Being a laptop campus, our students walk around with back packs that hold their laptops, numerous textbooks, notebooks, and other items. You would think they were hiking the Appalachian Trail rather than walking across a small campus to attend a few classes the way these backpacks stick out two or three feed from their backs. I can envision a model where students could be given the option of either purchasing the eBook for permanent ownership, or by leasing it for a specific amount of time for a lower cost. There are barriers to this of course. While the Kindle has been the most successful eBook reader so far, the technology still needs some tweaking and the business model has a long way to go. Recently, Amazon removed copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from their website and from their Kindle reader devices, copies these users assumed that they owned. The alarm caused by this development has caused people to once again to lose faith in the eBook concept. Call it good timing, or good luck, but that same week, Barnes & Noble announced the launch of its eBook store and its reader, the Plastic Logic eReader device which will be released in early 2010. The eBook industry is still unstable, but as we grow closer to standardization and more and more mediums of communication (books, news, articles, audio/visual) are accepted into the digital realm, there will be a place for eBook readers. And while textbook publishers may be a late adopter, I still expect there will be a place for them in the future world of eBooks.
Reference: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/11/03/golub