In the Virtual Stacks, Pirated Books Find Eager Thumbs

[bkbroil]

Here's a story from The New York Times about the downloading of pirated books. (You will have to register to read the article...but it's free )
The story details a young college graduate who admitted to never having to pay for books by downloading pirated copies of books. Downloading the latest bestsellers is easier than you think. I don't think were at the RIAA "lawsuit against John Doe" stage but it may be here before you know it.
Yet a quick survey conducted with peer-to-peer file-sharing software revealed the digital availability of dozens of titles currently on the New York Times best-seller list, including "The Da Vinci Code," "The South Beach Diet" and, of course, hundreds of copies of any Harry Potter title. Even the official audio-book versions read by the authors or celebrities are easy to come by. Computer and technical books that can cost as much as $100 in print are also a mainstay.
Other recesses of the Internet are also rich in illegally traded literature. A visit to a group called "#Bookz" on the Internet Relay Chat network revealed a multitude of titles being offered or sought every second.
Still, technologists believe that gadgets will eventually emerge to make the reading experience similar to that of cracking open a book.
"And as technology gets better and devices on which you can read books get more and more popular, people will look for ways to obtain books freely," Mr. Price of Envisional said.
What do you think about this?

[rodrigo]

I certainly dont think that suing college kids is the answer. the music industry needs to put out a better product for the money they ask. they've started to do this by releasing additional video content on cd's and access to websites only through the cd. maybe publishers need to start changing their product around to work with technology, not against it. they can start including other things with the purchase of an ebook, such as rebates for other books (buy 1 get 1 free?) or some other enticement (if i had the perfect answer i would be selling it to the publishers right now).
my point is that the music and film industry's response to piracy sucks! they would rather halt technological advances under the pretense that they are losing money on digital downloads (which they certainly aren't). they should make a better product that works around piracy and stop trying to stomp it out through lawsuits against 12 year olds.

[bkbroil]

they should make a better product that works around piracy and stop trying to stomp it out through lawsuits against 12 year olds

You said a mouthful there! I agree totally....stop trying to stomp on the little guy and start creating a different solution so that people won't have the need to download pirated copies...

[hawkmankt]

I also would comment that the prices of eBooks should be a little lower. I mean, they should be lower than paperbacks in my opinion. After all, there's no paper even involved.
Where's all that extra money going?