Dan Brown pirate copies rife on the internet
05.10.09 - The Bookseller & the NYT

More than 160 pirate copies of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol have been traced online, across 12 different download sites.
Attributor, a California-based company that offers publishers antipiracy services, did a search last week to see how many e-book copies of The Lost Symbol were available free on the web. According to the research, some of which was shared with The Bookseller and the New York Times, the largest culprit was online filesharer Rapidshare.com which had 102 pirated copies available online.
Ed McCoyd, an executive director the Association of American Publishers, told the New York Times that piracy was now a big concern for publishers: "We are seeing lots of online piracy activities across all kinds of books — pretty much every category is turning up. What happens when 20 to 30 percent of book readers use digital as the primary mode of reading books?”McCoyd identified RapidShare as the largest host site of pirated material. "Some publishers are saying half of all infringements are linked to it."

Randall Stross, writing for the New York Times, reports that RapidShare told him that it complied with publishers’ take-down requests, though he notes that his own book reappeared on RapidShare a few days after it was taken down.

He adds that the advice to publishers and authors from RapidShare was to give away the content for free--like Nine Inch Nails. "I will forward the suggestion along, as soon as authors can pack arenas full and pirated e-books can serve as concert fliers," responds Stross.
NY Times