Survey suggests e-book piracy may become worse than music piracy

According to the annual Digital Entertainment Survey, by the British lawfirm Wiggin, one in eight women over age 35 who owns an e-reader admits to having downloaded an illegal version of an e-book. That compares to just one in 20 women in the same age group who admits to having pirated music.

This research data is interesting, as digital piracy is an illicit activity that was understood to be popular among a much younger crowd, for instance college students and teenagers. If copyright infringement is indeed becoming more popular among a demographic group that previously never really participated in digital piracy, that would certainly be bad news for publishers.

Meanwhile, not only women over 35 put unlicensed content on their e-readers. Across all ages and both genders, some 29% of e-reader owners admitted that they pirate books. And for tablet owners, that number is even higher - 36%. The survey also reveils e-book users seem rather unsensitive to the detrimental effects of illegal copying: 25% of these people said they planned to continue to download pirated material in the future.

It is difficult to point out reasons why people are pirating books. A logical explanation would be that e-book prices are too high for consumers, or maybe they already own the same book in print. A lack of availability of e-book titles in certain countries could also contribute to the appeal of piracy. Furthermore, it could be that the perceived value of a digital book is lower than the value of a physical book. This may also explain why the people from the survey report that they do not intend to stop pirating content.

Although more research would be needed to confirm this trend, this study seems to show that producers of e-book content will face the same fate as record labels: suffering unprecedented copyright infringements and a struggle to replace lost physical sales.

Perhaps now is the time for a media campaign to create awareness of the downsides of copying e-books, if the increasing popularity and sales of tablets and e-readers will mean that digital e-book piracy rises accordingly.

Source:  The New York Times