e-Books: Promo Potential Outweighs Piracy Peril

“When MP3-players became popular in the late 90s the music industry started to panic about a supposed drop in revenues. Likewise, the film industry panicked when computers and dedicated equipment were able to play video files easily on computer screens and television sets.

Both claimed that such technologies, and the file-sharing networks that sprung up to support them, have decimated their industries. And yet both groups have never been healthier financially.”

So begins a piece weighing the perils of piracy and DRM flaunting against the potential for industry growth.  This is a familiar debate going back to the RIAA vs Napster era, but here the issue is discussed in the context of digital books, in a recent piece by Ben Jones (Note: the piece appears on the website Torrent Freak, so make sure your grain of salt is handy.)

The piece highlights several recent cases in e-book rights, and is a worthwhile read for that summary alone.  Jones concludes:

“E-books have the potential to increase sales of physical books as well as provide their own source of income. That is, if authors and publishers are willing to accept them and deal with their users fairly, instead of hiding behind curiously high prices or DRM…. The lessons should have been learned from the 10+ year music fight. Throwing money at enforcement and litigation doesn’t work. Instead embracing the medium can be beneficial.”