People steal because they can.

The digital revolution has allowed people to anonymously do what they would not do publicly. Look at the online porn boom!

I agree with those who say that the secret is ease of purchase and fair prices. People buy from iTunes because its a quick and painless process. Therein lies the key…

Here’s yet another example.

Not much in that list of points about ‘trying to sell more books in more places’.

In fact, they are a great case study of how not to do organisational eTransformation, for anyone needing a research paper subject.

If they can’t police their own estate – then what good is targeting “facilitators – takedowns and lawsuits; target pirates – target individuals and companies; pursue legislation and enforcement”

Macmillan dropped Mobipocket for unknown reasons – to me anyway. It does have DRM but they probably weren’t getting any sales at hardcover prices for an ebook. Even with DRM the book should be less than the paperback in my opinion.

Seen books for sale – I guess backlists that have been in print for 30+ years and charging hardcover prices – no wonder they are pirated supposedly.

Bill above mentioned “Point Two: The biggest motivation for posting ebooks illegally is restricting availability. Books that are not available as ebooks, or available only for Kindle are more likely to be posted than ones more generally available.”

Not only that, there are the country restrictions which a retailer has no choice but to follow, and have to deal with the emails that wonder why they can’t buy it. At least so far none have asked where they could get a “clean copy” – but that doesn’t mean they didn’t go find one.

Whether it’s available for sale as an ebook or not, a pirated electronic copy will be available within days of the print copy, or in the case of popular/desired, even the same day (cough Harry Potter).

If Brian Napack spent a lot of time working in the music industry, it appears he didn’t learn the lesson. Either make something available for purchase *how* people want it at a reasonable price, or we will find an alternative. All not making it available for purchase does is eliminate a potential revenue stream.

At a more cosmic level, the big issue isn’t piracy; rather, it’s growing revenue.

I’m glad Napack at least isn’t on the warpath against $10 books and envisions even lower prices after a book has been out a bit. Good on him for that! Avoidance of gouges is one of the best anti-piracy strategies.

-David

Or maybe that isn’t considered “e-book piracy” since it starts out as a p-book?

Point Two: The biggest motivation for posting ebooks illegally is restricting availability. Books that are not available as ebooks, or available only for Kindle are more likely to be posted than ones more generally available.

Point Three: In a capitalist economy, a product is worth only as much as consumers are willing to pay for it. Publishers can cry however much they want about how expensive a book or ebook is to produce — customers don’t care. The fact that most books end up as paperbacks shows that most book buyers don’t think the latest by Dan Brown is worth $25. E-book pricing based on the hard back price only increases motivation. Amazon has it right with respect to the $10 e-book… though ultimately, even that is probably too much as ebooks become more mainstream. You might have a month or two where you can charge that much, but then its going to have to drop to $7 or $8 (or even less) or the pirates will get to work.

The reasonable prices thing is one thing Macmillan (through Tor, St. Martin’s, etc.) really needs to get. Charging $15 for an ebook when you charge $7.99 for the paper version isn’t going to help.

The best way to combat illegal ebook downloads is to make a large range of good quality ebooks widely available without DRM at reasonable prices.

Targeting individuals with lawsuits isn’t going to help. Just look at how much good it did the music industry. iTunes Music Store and Amazon MP3s, however…