Contents

1,200 titles (see this blogpost by publisher Timo Boezeman).Also in January 2013, the self-publishing portal Lulu gaveup on DRM (statement on DRM policy).By May 2013, Bill McCoy, the executive director of the InternationalDigital Publishing Forum, IDPF, even listedamong what are in his view Seven Deadly Myths of DigitalPublishing as Myth 5: “DRM Is About Reducing Piracy”, arguingthat there was a “growing realization that DRM hasnothing to do with reducing piracy is that lighter-weightforms of DRM—including watermarking and other socialapproaches that don’t technologically bar sharing—aremore attractive than a quixotic arms race to deploy moreand more sophisticated technologies that will only frustrateconsumers and lead to them being locked in to proprietaryplatforms.” (Quoted in Publishers Weekly, 29 May2013) But of course, the debate is still on, and notably thelargest publishing groups attach hard DRM to the majorityof their ebook titles so far.Preliminary conclusions on ebook piracyThere is broad agreement about the publishing industry’sarrival at the “Napster moment” for ebooks. But these briefcase studies on piracy research in France and Germanyclearly illustrate the limited consensus —aside from theproblem’s scope and threatening forces— on how to understandthe driving forces and, as a consequence, whatactions will be effective at reducing the loss from piracy tolegal rights owners.Identifying and mapping the offerings seems to be key,and the obvious first step —not only to persecute infringement,but before such action— is to become aware(especially for publishers) of the intricacies and dynamicsof the problem.This step requires tough strategic decisions for the industry:an assessment of the experiences, practices, and lobbyingstrategies from other content industries —notablymovies and music— and whether they should be followed,and the extent to which different approaches should bedeveloped.eBooks are primarily downloaded from DDL sources,where uploaders are next to impossible to identify. Therefore,publishers must get involved individually to checksuch sources for their respective catalogs of titles and toforce concrete links promoting illegal download sourcesfor their titles to be taken down by the offenders. So far,only a few such specialized service providers exist.Several of the leading international groups have takensuch action, such as John Wiley & Sons in the textbookmarket (Publishers Weekly, November 1, 2011) and theHachette group for general trade (Livres Hebdo, December15, 2011) as just two examples. But the offer can also beadapted to be more compelling for readers who wouldprefer a legal offer if it were available in convenient ways.A group of 39 Japanese manga publishers explored suchpossibilities with a subscription site targeted at US consumerswith English-language editions of their graphicbooks (www.jmanga.com). The JManga offer, at this point,is available only to users in the US and Canada. For details,see Livres Hebdo, August 22, 2011.The piracy debate also overlaps with that on ebook pricing.As The Economist pointed out in an analysis of ebooks andthe book business titled “Great Digital Expectations,” “piracyis a particular threat because of a second, biggerproblem: the apparently arbitrary nature of e-book pricing”(The Economist, September 10, 2011).Piracy and ebooks is a complex challenge for the industry’sorganizations, as is crafting the overall story they want totell the reading audience as well as politicians and regulators.So far, in many parts of continental Europe, at least, thepredominant mood is one of angst. “Publishers and retailerstremble from the pirates,” read the headline of an articleabout extraordinary growth of ereader and ebook sales forChristmas 2011 in Germany —and this wasn’t in a tabloid,but in the country’s leading business daily, Handelsblatt(December 27, 2011). What may have been conceived asa means of self-defense in an industry undergoing changecan result in a severe image problem, as pointed out byRené Strien, a German publisher and president of the associationof German trade publishers (buchreport, January19, 2012). Strien warned of publishers publicly beingblamed as a mere “content exploitation Mafia” at a crucialmoment when the very basics of European and internationalcopyright were coming under review by politiciansand clashing lobbying groups, with growing controversybetween rights holders and consumers.Thus, piracy —together with pricing, copy protection(DRM) and regulation— may be one of the strongest forcesshaping the European ebook markets in their next phaseof development.The Global eBook Report 105