The September edition of
The Writer has an article on how copyright piracy grows with the emergence of e-books. Chuck Leddy writes:
Quote:
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With file-sharing becoming so popular, some have sounded the death knell of copyright and the book itself. Fortunately for writers, reading a book through a digital format remains a pretty dismal experience. Still, companies like Sony are working on creating an accessible format for reading on-screen, though the reviews of early products (like the Sony Reader) have been mixed.
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So, according to him, authors - for their own sakes - have to
hope that
e-books will never succeed for everyone who reads an e-book is a potential file-sharer (how else could it be "fortunate" for writers that the digital format has not yet picked up?).
He concludes:
Quote:
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What's at stake in these copyright battles is the future of our literary culture. If authors can't pay their rent, what incentive will they have for creating literary works? While authors write to express their artistic vision and make their voices public, they also have a right to protect their work and profit from it. But in the ever-changing electronic landscape, file-sharing is often just a mouse-click away. The tension between an author's rights and the increasing ease of accessing anything anytime online will continue to mount. And the scene where the valiant naval officer sails in to restore order has yet to be written.
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Compare this with Jon Evan's
recent coming out who joined the crowd of authors who want to publish their best works online for free.
Related: "Friction" is why e-books adoption is slow