No, David Pogue, Ebook Piracy Is Not a Given

adamengst writes "David Pogue recently wrote a widely read blog post in which he explains that piracy is the reason he doesn't make his books available in PDF format. But in this article, TidBITS publisher Adam Engst disagrees strongly with Pogue's opinion, using sales numbers from the Take Control series of ebooks (150,000+ copies sold since 2004 with virtually no copying) as proof that making electronic versions not only doesn't necessarily lead to piracy, it may be the best way of preventing illicit sharing."

Comments

Required reading IMHO.

[Knightman]

Macaulay on copyright law: http://www.baen.com/library/palaver4.htm

Eric Flint on making books available online: http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm

nuff said.

Re:piracy is a given regardless

[rboatright]

Uh, look, the analysis is flawed.

First, books are an odd special case.

I can't fit the analysis in a slashdot post... if you haven't read McCauley on Copyright, and if you haven't read Eric Flint's analysis of copyright, piracy and e-books as they effect modern authors, do so.

Start here:
Spillage: or, The Way Fair Use Works in Favor of Authors and Publishers http://baens-universe.com/articles/salvos8

then go here and read _all_ the salvo's columns...
http://baens-universe.com/authors/Eric_Flint

Meanwhile, there's been very little said about copyright in the last century that McCauley didn't already address... http://www.baen.com/library/palaver4.htm