Publishing: Springer Says Piracy Doesn’t Harm eBook Sales
From a TorrentFreak Blog Post:
Boasting a collection of tens of thousands of eBooks, Springer is one of the larger publishers dealing with this emerging threat.
To show what they’re doing to prevent the unauthorized distribution of eBooks, the company has recently updated its anti-piracy strategy. Like most other copyright holders, Springer is mainly focused on sending takedown requests.
[Clip]
In order to protect our authors´ rights and interests, Springer proactively screens websites for illegal download links of Springer eBooks and subsequently requires hosts of such download sites to remove and delete the files or links in question,” they write.
The sentence that follows, however, is perhaps of even more interest. While the company admits that piracy is a serious issue, they have yet to see any evidence that it hurts their business (emphasis added).
“While we have not yet seen harmful effects of eBook piracy and file sharing on our eBook portfolio, these are nevertheless considered serious topics,” Springer notes.
In addition to the revelation above, the publisher later notes that torrent sites and other forms of file-sharing “rarely present a threat to eBook content.”
Read the Complete Article (Includes Embed of Anti-Piracy Document From Springer)
You can also grab the Springer Anti-Piracy document here (PDF).
Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), News, Publishing
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.