By Maryann Yin on Galley Cat, May 24, 2011
The High Low tackled one of the toughest questions facing publishers: “Will eBooks become the next Napster?” They quoted some surprising statistics.
Here’s more from the article: “One in every three people who download e-books on their digital readers do so illegally, according to a survey of 1,959 consumers conducted by a British law firm … Record labels notoriously lost millions thanks to Napster (which was eventually ruled illegal), and now publishers are staring down the same tunnel.”
2 comments:
There isn’t much of a price difference between the print & electronic version – so maybe, downloading books illegally is what the e-readers resort to, mainly to save money, having paid a price for a nook or kindle already.
With e-book readers in the market, this should have been foreseen.
An interesting article on e-books v/s paperbacks: http://librarywalablogs.blogspot.com/2011/04/papreabcks-and-harbacks-vs-e-books.html
This is a greater threat to the writer than to the musician, because musicians can still make money on live performances. A few writers do well on the lecture circuit, but most, if they don't get paid for what they write, can't get paid for performing it.
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