I know we do seem to bang on about piracy of everything, and I'm sorry if this has been discussed before, but one thing that seems to set the ebook piracy debate apart from the Music example, is that, as far as I can see, is that nobody seems to be making a great deal of cash out of it.
One reason perhaps being that enough
legal stuff is transcribed badly enough to make potential buyers wary of hookey sounding material ?
I admit to my lack of familiarity with the complexities of ebook piracy - apart from the fact that it happens, and that authors can lose money thanks to it. I don't, for example, see many bootleg copies being offered for sale at Boot Sales or in the local papers.
Nor do I see reports of factories being discovered producing thousands of copies of stuff to be sold cheaply somehow , or pretending to be the real thing (i.e. forgeries) all over the world.
Which, of course,
was, and still is, the case with music, and the majormotivation for the upheaval in the music industry, and it's reluctant "embracing" of the fact that computers and downloads existed in the general populace.
And better to be inside the tent.....than outside.....
Now, having done a limited bit of poking around, I haven't yet come up with anywhere that actually sells digital stuff for readers etc...
I can see that some cash could be made through dodgy advertising, or smuggling a few things onto ebay and the like, but have I missed something basic here ? Am I simply too tech-ignorant or just naive ?
[ I'm not looking for a "how to" I assure you, but just intrigued...
]
Or do ebook pirates in fact make piles of illegal money ?