"Most e-books in The Netherlands are not paid for."

[Katsunami]

Source: Tweakers.net

Translation:

Most e-books that reside on Dutch e-readers are not paid for. This is shown through statistics provided by market research company GfK. On average, a bit below 10 percent of e-books is actually paid for; all the rest is acquired by illegal means.

On average, a Dutch e-reader contains 117 e-books, 11 of which are paid for, says Algemeen Dagblad, based on the numbers provided by GfK. The rest is either free, or acquired through illegal means such as Torrent-sites or Usenet (newsgroups). The exact percentage of books acquired through illegal means is not known.

In the Netherlands e-books are just a small part of the revenue of the book market: only about 4.5 percent. Writers and publishers have told AD that they are going to launch a campain about "Reading Legally" on social media. However, downloading books through torrents or usenet is legal in the Netherlands, uploading (distributing them) is not.

Last week, libraries have started to loan e-books. Not all publishers are cooperating, but A.W. Bruna, De Bezige Bij, AtlasContact, De Fontein and some smaller publishers are among the ones that do. Library members may borrow all 5.000 books for free, up to April. After that, for books newer than three years, one has to pay €20 to borrow 18 books.

[fjtorres]

Not unusual.
Pre-Kindle, that was true everywhere.
Even in the developed ebook markets it is probably a tight race between commercial books and the legal freebies (promo and PD).
(No need to factor in the "unauthorized editions"...)

[Katsunami]

My reaction is: LOL.

In the Netherlands, we have 28.000 e-books (in Dutch) for sale, and we can now borrow 5.000 books. (The numbers... ZE NUMBERZ!!!) At some point, we'd need to start paying €1.11 per e-book if we want to borrow one.

Guys, I've got a newsflash for you.

NOBODY... NO - FRACKING - BODY is buying or even reading Dutch e-books compared to English ones, at least not among the people I know, except for one person because she can't read English. All others read in English and acquire their books outside of the Netherlands because of price, choice, and (in case of classics) the possibility to get them for free.

There are just two reasons for people to read books in Dutch:

- Because the original is Dutch.
- Because they can't or don't want to read English.

If there is an English original, the people who have e-readers read the original, and buy it outside of The Netherlands.

Virtually everybody between 18 and 45 over here understands English to easily read books in English, up to high school level. If an English high-schooler can read it, most Dutch people can read it as well, because taking and passing an English Final Exam is (or at least was, for a very long time) a pre-requisite to obtain a high school diploma. (edit: English is still a core subject, along with Dutch and Mathematics, but now you may fail one of them by obtaining 5 as final mark, and still pass your Final Exam.)

IMHO, the Dutch e-book market (and maybe even the book market) is doomed because of the e-reader.

[Bilbo1967]

There's a distinct anomaly between the first two paragraphs you quote. The first seems to suggest that anything that wasn't paid for is illegal; the second acknowledges that "free" doesn't necessarily equal "illegal".

I have a lot of free books on my reader, none were illegally obtained.

[OtterBooks]

Writers and publishers have told AD that they are going to launch a campaign about "Reading Legally" on social media.

seems like a waste of effort, imo. People are going to do what they are going to do.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

There's a distinct anomaly between the first two paragraphs you quote. The first seems to suggest that anything that wasn't paid for is illegal; the second acknowledges that "free" doesn't necessarily equal "illegal".

I have a lot of free books on my reader, none were illegally obtained.

Correct. It's a direct translation of the Dutch article, and this point is also mentioned in many of the comments below. Getting a book for free is not nessicarily illegal.

Muddying the waters even more are the statements "acquired through illegal means such as torrents", and "downloading books through torrents and usenet is legal".

At this point in time it's quite easy however: The Dutch government is of the opinion that it is either unreasonable or impossible to expect of someone to check the legality of each and every file before downloading, so we're allowed to download anything, apart from computer programs (unless they are clearly stated to be free), and we pay extra taxes to compensate. Thus, illegally downloading media isn't even possible at this point in time. Downloading media for which you should have paid is possible, obviously, but not (yet) punishable by law.

(I'm not stating an opinion if these extra taxes work correctly, or if this is a morally correct system or not. I'm just stating the rules as they are now.)

[Terisa de morgan]

Change The Netherland by Spain and you have the same articles and situations (although not the same English level)

[Terisa de morgan]

Change The Netherland by Spain and Dutch by Spanish you have the same articles and situations (although not the same English level)

[meeera]

There is a lot of further water-muddying by using the average (by which I assume they mean mean). If a person who hasn't paid for their books has a couple thousand, and a person who has has a couple dozen, you don't need many non-payers to bring the average up.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by meeera

There is a lot of further water-muddying by using the average (by which I assume they mean mean). If a person who hasn't paid for their books has a couple thousand, and a person who has has a couple dozen, you don't need many non-payers to bring the average up.

And because a person who doesn't pay has no problem getting many thousands of books, bringing up the average, while people who actually pay may only get a few/hundred. Pirates on average can be expected to have far more books.

[crich70]

Isn't there also the issue of where the person downloads from? I mean even here at MR we have warnings about downloading a book because a book that is legal to download in one country may not be (due to copyright status) in another. So even with books that are in PD it's not always clear depending on where the downloader is if a given book is legal or illegal.

[Mivo]

I like how these statistics dump pirated books and free books in the same category of "not paid for". Of my four current e-ink readers, three came with a substantial number of copyright-free/expired books already pre-installed. How many people delete these?

But even for pirated books the decisive (and by publishers never asked) questions are:

How many of those books would have been purchased if the persons had not been able to get them off torrent sites?

And how many of those torrented books led to sales that may not have happened without them? (Recommendations, word of mouth, guilt, desire to support the author, etc.)

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

There's a distinct anomaly between the first two paragraphs you quote. The first seems to suggest that anything that wasn't paid for is illegal; the second acknowledges that "free" doesn't necessarily equal "illegal".

Oh, he didn't quote what our local newspaper headlined with:

Ebooks stolen wholesale [rough translation]
Only 10% of the 128 million books on Dutch e-readers is paid for. A signal that illegal downloading is rising and threatens publishers and writers.

In that title it doesn't say a thing about that maybe most of those not-paid for ebooks might have been freebies... You'll have to read the entire story before they (grudgingly) admit that some of those not-paid for books might not be pirated but rather given away... (or from Gutenberg, smashwords, etc)

[aardbewoner]

Do blame adobe now with v3 unreadble books.
Soon no more updates for xp so no more reader and ade updates.

Prove do not becomme dependend on a thirth party or there incryption.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

At this point in time it's quite easy however: The Dutch government is of the opinion that it is either unreasonable or impossible to expect of someone to check the legality of each and every file before downloading, so we're allowed to download anything, apart from computer programs (unless they are clearly stated to be free), and we pay extra taxes to compensate.

How does that tax revenue get back to the authors whose works are being pirated? ie, if I am an author, how do I claim my cut of the revenue?