MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
January 7 – January 14, 2010 Edition
E-Book Piracy Likely to Worsen
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/01/07/10–Digital piracy is spreading to the book world, according to a New Year’s Day article at CNN. Dan Brown’s new blockbuster, THE LOST SYMBOL reportedly was pirated 100,000 times within days of its release and appeared on file-sharing sites such as Rapidshare and BitTorrent.
CNN quoted Fordham University marketing professor Albert Greco that “It’s fair to say that piracy of e-books is exploding.”
Sales for digital books in the second quarter of 2009 totaled almost $37 million–more than three times the total for the same three months in 2008, according to the Association of American Publishers (AAP).
On Amazon.com, Brown’s book sold more digital copies for the Kindle e-reader in its first few days than hardback editions. And digital copies of the novel were pirated less than 24 hours after its release.
As electronic reading devices such as Amazon’s Kindle, the Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, smartphones and Apple’s much-anticipated “tablet” boost demand for e-books, experts say the problem may only get worse.
Read the full story at CNN.
