28% of e-reader owners use pirate sites

[Rowena, Group Owner]

For the survey, see this

http://www.versoadvertising.com/beasu...

E-Book piracy and P2P sharing is on page 43 (keep clicking to get there!)

45% of young male e-reader owners use Torrent sites

"ebook piracy will intensify with ereader adoption"

[Rowena, Group Owner]

For an example of how piracy spirals out of control if not checked...

Yesterday, iOffer.com has 37,000 ebooks being auctioned (this is actual offers for sale).

Today there are 38,000 ebooks being auctioned. If you look at the listings, you might see 3,800 covers, but click on any cover, and you will find that the vendors are selling 10 copies (unless they have already sold a few).

Authors are NOT PAID for these auctions of illegally created bootleg copies of an original work.

[Guido]

I actually wrote to iOffer and got a return email yesterday, indicating they would investigate the incident. They said it could/would take between 24/48 hours. As of this writing nothing has changed, the main culprit - by the user name of "mondayreturn" is still listing 135 illegal eBooks for sale.

[Rowena, Group Owner]

Well done, Guido.

I've told a few authors, also a few of the major companies... as discussed on the radio show.

When eXtasy editor in chief Jay Austin mentioned how much the Poser program cost, I was tempted to mention the pirate auction of it on one of the auction sites for a tenth of what legitimate retailers charge.

If a site makes money (commissions, PayPal fees) from the sale of stolen or bootlegged property, IMHO the site ought to at least hand over those illegal profits to the copyright owner.

There ought to be some compensation to copyright owners for the productive time that has to be sacrificed in order to send take-down notices.

If sites like iOffer did not exist, it would not be necessary to send take-down notices!