As e-readers become mainstream, so does pirating e-books

e-Readers are on the rise. In the United States, there are approximately 1,7 million e-readers in circulation. The expectation is that this number will increase to 4 million before year’s end.

More and more companies are developing and marketing the devices. Amazon has its Kindle, Sony the Reader. Then there are Samsung, iRex, Elonex and Bookeen, to name a few. Apple plans to release a tablet computer next year, which will also contribute to the demand of e-books.

The market for reading digital books is maturing. In Great Britain, the number of available titles increased by 300% over the last year reports Times online. However, so does the threat of literature piracy. A case in point is Dan Brown’s new book, Lost Symbol. Pirated version of the book circulated the Internet even before it was published. Reportedly, it was downloaded more than 100.000 times within half a week.

Publishers thought to be safe from piracy as scanning every page of a book is quite the task. Now that reading has gone digital, however, creating and distributing illegal copies gets ever easier. Not in the least because of the file size. A pirated DVD clocks in at around 4 GB. The 3 MB for an e-book is tiny in comparison, and easy to share rapidly.

To stem the tide for pirates, the British Publishers Association has developed a web tool that allows publishers to log copyright infringement and file a request for withdrawal of the file from the infringing website. The system works, but is not watertight. A spokesperson of the association said: “There are a lot of holes in the dyke. We are surprised by the scale and spectrum of authors that are being pirated. We need to get to grips quickly with practical ways of tackling copyright infringement.”

Digital Rights Management is one option, but that too has an Achilles heel. However well DRM may function, there is always a gap: the analogue hole. As long as a media file remains digital, it can be secured. However, at some point, the content needs to become analogue for us to be able to see or hear it. Anlogue signals are easy to copy. So DRM leaves a hole by definition, a hole that is exploited by pirates.