Contents

(see details in “eBook piracy in Europe: The example anddebate in Germany, and related findings”).In June 2013, the Russian parliament Duma cleared antipiracylegislation, which was debated controversiall byfreedom of speech activists, as it is expected to allow copyrightholders to ask the authorities to block entire websitesif they provide any allegedly pirated content. (RiaNovosti,14 June 2013)A study in fall 2011 done by the Federal Agency for Pressand Mass Communication 1 had found that 44 percent ofreaders of ebooks used “mobile devices,” versus 46 percentwho read on a PC. Fifty-six percent of the devices otherthan PCs were dedicated ereaders, compared to 25 percentsmartphones, 22 percent other mobile phones, and13 percent tablets (e.g., iPad or other).Among the 25 percent of participants who said that theyread both printed and electronic books, the main attraction(for 58 percent of this group of participants) of ebookswas finding the desired book faster than the printed edition.However, one may assume that this convenience ofaccessibility is not limited to (or even primarily providedby) legal downloads but reflects the heavy impact of piracywhen it comes to ebooks. Stakeholders queried for thisreport assumed that pirated ebooks represented an estimated90 percent of the current ebook downloads in Russia.In Russia, the most popular format for ebooks is FB (or FictionBook),an open XML-based standard with the file extension.fb2. The format is without DRM and describes thestructure of a document, including the basic metadatasuch as the author’s name, the title, and the publisher of abook, allowing convenient conversion to other file formatsas well as indexing and management of ebooks by thereader (more details in English are available here).FBReader is open source reading software for GNU/Linux,Windows, and other platforms, originally released in January2005 (more details in English are available here).Earlier developmentsBy the end of 2011, ebook releases of national bestsellerswere considered to be the main driving force behind therecent expansion of the (legal) Russian ebook segment(e.g., Viktor Pelewin’s postapocalyptic novel S.N.U.F.F., WalterIsaacson’s biography of the late Apple founder SteveJobs, or the Millennium trilogy by Swedish crime writerStieg Larsson). A relevant ebook bestseller list is availableat the ebook retail platform LitRes.With about 60,000 ebook titles available by the end of2011, the two largest publishing groups, EKSMO and AST,were considered to be the market leaders in Russianebooks.In 2010, the legal Russian ebook market was worth US $2million (up from US $1 million in 2009), with 600,000 ebookreading devices sold. For 2011, estimates expected anotherdoubling of the ebook market in value versus 2010.Main actors in the (legal) Russian ebookmarketIn December 2012, Apple opened its iTunes store in Russia,followed within a week by Google with its Play store (readmore here). Kobo has announced that it will roll out itsservices in Russia in 2013.Several other players launched initiatives in the Russianmarket, including the British retail chain WHSmith and theGerman self-publishing portal XinXii (read more here).In distribution, LitRes is the top-performing platform, followedby Imobilco, the general online sales platform Ozon,Labirint, and Bookland, plus a few specialized venturesdeveloping innovative models adapted specifically to theRussian environment, notably KnigaFund (literally “bookfund,” of the Digital Distribution Center, DDC Ltd.) and theonline library BookMate.LitResLitRes, founded in 2007, is considered to be the leadingebook retail platform for legal titles in Russia, currentlylisting 200,000 ebook and audio titles for download andits own LitRes Touch device. As early as 2009, AlexanderRoife, chief editor of LitRes, noted that titles which figuredon the print bestselling charts had between 3,000 and6,000 legal downloads on average as well (Publishing Perspectives,October 2009).1. The survey was based on a sample of 1,008 interviews, conducted in the 12 largest cities of Russia: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, Yekaterinburg,Kazan, N. Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Rostovon-Don, Samara, Ufa, and Chelyabinsk (representing together about 19 percent of the Russianpopulation). Only people ages 18 and higher who read books were interviewed. Nonreaders were not interviewed. “Readers” are considered toconstitute about 55 percent of the Russian population over 18 years old.The Global eBook Report 59