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Old 07-31-2010, 07:09 PM   #4
mikij
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mikij doesn't littermikij doesn't litter
 
Posts: 98
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: Quebec, Canada
Device: PRS-600
I think this is quite impossible to answer. There are probably many (more) public domain eBooks that are downloaded than the bought ones and I hope that number of pirated eBooks is less than 1-2%.

What is interesting is the following: the same PD eBooks that are free on Gutenberg and elsewhere, are sold at Amazon and other sites (B&N, Kobo, etc.).
This is quite indecent. They are not better (it seems that many are full of errors, sometimes more than the free ones), copyright is the same (free) and publishers just want to take a lot of money for no work at all.

This may push people to visit the free PD books sites, but certainly not the darknet.

However, the georestriction and the fact that many of the contemporary authors are not available in form of eBooks MIGHT push some towards the pirates. However, I suppose the pirates don't do a professional proofreading (if at all) and they cannot be interesting to readers.
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