He says in the first article :
"Not only are operators of piracy websites getting more savvy, but the traditional ebook forum or website continues to be the most popular."
But ebook piracy in a mass organized form has been around for highly technical people for ages now through IRC and Usenet and I would argue those are the most traditional forms not the forums and websites.
I think ebook piracy is rising because it is available to a non-technical audience in professional looking websites and the FBI can't do anything about it, like gather IP addresses, because they are run in foreign countries.
For instance, I did a whois unix command on b-ok.cc and got this :
Domain Name: B-OK.CC
Registry Domain ID: 138308276_DOMAIN_CC-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.eranet.com
Registrar URL: http://www.eranet.com
Updated Date: 2018-10-10T06:29:47Z
Creation Date: 2018-10-08T20:26:11Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2019-10-08T20:26:11Z
Registrar: Eranet International Limited
Registrar IANA ID: 1868
Registrar Abuse Contact Email:
cs@now.cn
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +867563810566
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Name Server: PDNS05.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: PDNS06.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
It looks like it is based in China and I think the Russians are in on it too. The Chinese would theoretically have a political motive to weaken the American economy this way as $300 million is significant.
That being said there is a book I know of called Code Reading by Diomidis Spinellis that was released around 2002 and rather than drop in price it goes up in price it is supposed to be the opposite in tech because around 2002 is like ages ago. Also, Amazon has the kindle version for $42.11 and B&N , for my device, sells it for like around $52 dollars. I feel like they are trying to rip me off so I can see the temptation for pirating. If I did buy the book I would buy it for the lowest price available strip it of DRM and put it on my B&N glowlight plus 2.