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Old 02-17-2010, 06:53 PM   #114
Ben Thornton
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Posts: 900
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: UK
Device: Kindle 3, iPad 2 (but not for e-books)
Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesbeat View Post
I'm pretty sure that pirated ebooks are exactly the same as their legal counterparts, except that they are stripped of any DRM restrictions. Where do you think they come from in the first place?
Someone downloads the book, fixes the DRM and makes it available on bittorrent etc.
The only way a publisher could avoid piracy is to only sell paper books, as scanning a book is usually too much work for a pirate.
This is not my experience. A lot of material that's available illegally is not available legally at all. Much of it seems to come from scanning paper books - by enthusiasts, not people seeking to sell them on.

My point was that where there is a convenient way of getting a high quality copy at a fair price, people will do so - which is the same point that you make about people following the path of least resistance.
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