Hachette disables all highlighting in Kindle books, tells authors that piracy is to blame for low royalties, and brags about it to the press. Wtf?
piracy
How to spot a pirate ebook site
Let’s assume you don’t want to download a pirated copy of an ebook, but you’re still the type of consumer who wants a good bargain. As you look around the web for ebook sources, you’ll sometimes come across websites that charge a flat fee for limitless downloads. There’s no mention of torrents, and it’s not [...]
How your next ebook loan might sap your library’s book budget
For all their good qualities, and there are almost two, publishers sometimes have really bad traits as well, and one of the worst is a hatred of public libraries. Last week, HarperCollins revealed the extent of this hate when it announced a new ebook lending policy: after 26 check-outs, the ebook’s license expires, and the [...]
When publishers won’t sell, piracy emerges
“I think what leads to rampant piracy is not meeting emergent demands.” – Brian O’Leary That is the most concise statement I’ve read so far about an issue that constantly bothers me, which is that content companies create their own piracy problems. They do it by not moving fast enough, or by not waking [...]
Why DRM is a distraction
There are bigger problems in the ebook marketplace than individual piracy. You may not feel that way if you’re an author or publisher with a marketable title. And you may not feel that way if you’re a staunch consumer advocate, or if you worry about how DRM prevents ebooks from being future-proof. But the underlying [...]
How publishers encourage piracy
When a recalcitrant publisher and an impatient consumer square off online, it’s usually the consumer who wins. Here are four ways publishers encourage piracy.
David Pogue is superstitious about ebooks
Of all people to be emotional to a fault about digital publishing, I wouldn’t expect it of David Pogue, the technology writer for the New York Times–and yet this week he published an anti-ebook column where he said that because his books can be pirated at all, they should never be available in digital format. [...]