As the popularity of eBooks and eReaders continues to increase, eBook piracy is also growing rapidly, ReadWriteWeb reports. According to Attributor, a company that develops anti-piracy and content monitoring solutions, the daily demand for pirated books can be estimated at up to 3 million people worldwide. The company’s latest study also highlights that the total interest in documents from file-sharing sites has increased more than 50 percent over the course of the last year. Interestingly, eBook piracy is moving away from large sites like RapidShare to smaller sites and those that specialize in pirated eBooks. Unlike the music industry, the leading publishing houses haven’t resorted to suing eBook pirates yet, but while the publishing industry has been more open about allowing DRM-free content on the market, most of the eBook content that is for sale today is still crippled by DRM. Sharing books—just like sharing music—is deeply ingrained in our culture, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that a lot of people would use these illegal conduits to access pirated content…
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eBook restrictions vex users
As more and more eReading devices flood the market, users are beginning to feel the restrictions imposed by copyright and digital rights management (DRM)—restrictions that some fear could hold back the use of eBooks in education.
Imagine this: You’re in the market for an eReader device and decide to buy a Kindle. Books for your Kindle must be purchased through Amazon’s eBook store. You can download the books you buy to your computer and/or your Kindle device.
Now, imagine that you’d like a Barnes & Noble Nook instead: Can you upload your Amazon eBooks to your Nook? Can you lend the books you’ve downloaded on your computer to friends? The answer to these questions is no, leading some to question whether purchasing an eBook for an eReader device is really buying the book at all.…Read More