Kindle e-book piracy accelerates
David Carnoy- “Several months ago I set up a Google alert for my book, “Knife Music,” to keep abreast of anything anybody was saying–good or bad–about the thing. Over the months I’ve received news of the occasional blog post and tweets, but more recently I popped open an alert to learn that my book was being pirated–both as a separate file and part of two larger Torrents called 2,500 Retail Quality Ebooks (iPod, iPad, Nook, Sony Reader) and 2,500 Retail Quality Ebooks for Kindle (MOBI).I had the strange reaction of being both dismayed and weirdly honored that someone had selected my book to strip free of its copy-protection (DRM) and include as part of a collection of “quality” e-books, many of which were from very good authors.”
>> had the strange reaction of being both dismayed and weirdly honored that someone had selected my book
This reminds me of Mark Twain’s little bit about being sold at a slave market.
Google found it.
It’s in “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
http://books.google.com/books?id=d2haAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA337&dq=twain+slave+auction+connecticut+yankee&hl=en&ei=G05hTbnWLoO88gbk07WtDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CEUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false
I think it’s probably there.
As for why your book was selected, I think the following factors are very important:
It got very good user reviews on Amazon.com and the Kindle edition cost only $3.99 (The low cost is an important factor –
- the pirate did have to pay for the first copy.
The pirate who put together the collection of 2.5000 quality e-books was also probably looking to include many books that most people hadn’t read yet. He needed famous books but he also wanted on-famous ones, and he’s looking for repeat business.
Not just for other collections, but people wanting to buy other copies. It’s probably not so easy to copy the Torrent file and besides people might not always find it convenient, or their computer may get lost or stolen or crash etc.