Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
One firm says ebook piracy has cost publishers $3 billion. (They counted a cluster of popular books' downloads, assumed every download was a lost sale, and multiplied it by the number of books currently available, or something like that.)
An older article estimates the damage at $600,000, and mentions Dan Brown a lot. Author David Carnoy also falls prey to the fallacy that every download is a missed royalty payment. Another bemoans the amount of time spent sending C&D and DMCA takedowns to pirate sites.
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The first claim does seem rather silly. Looks like everyone is looking for evidence to support their (often pre-existing) opinion, and lo and behold, everyone is finding it.
What ultimately will matter is whether or not people care, and I don't think many do. That isn't an argument for it, because maybe they
should care, but they don't appear to. Not a single person I've broached the subject with has ever even heard the term "agency pricing." They don't think about the industry; they don't boycott publishers (most people I know couldn't even tell you who published the last book they read) or worry about the finer points of intellectual property; they just buy books and read them.
I personally do not care about DRM on my ebooks or feel restricted by it in any way. I differ from most DRM-apathetic folks in that I'm aware of it and the arguments against it, and I've made an informed decision to not give a crap. I appreciate that others have a different experience. Then again, I mostly use my ereader for public domain material (with the occasional purchase here and there), and any book I truly value I buy in hardcover. I still <3 physical books.