E-Book Piracy on the iPad: Some Thoughts

The iPad's using the ePub format for its electronic books, which is usually an open standard, but Apple's applied its own DRM to it at the request of book publishers. So books you buy at the iBookstore won't be compatible with other e-readers. The publishing industry has been obsessed in the past few years with preventing digital book piracy before it becomes popular, and, learning literally nothing from the music industry, believes that copy protection will be effective in doing so. Whether or not it is, I have this gut feeling that the story of book piracy and the reaction to it from authors/publishers is going to play out quite differently from the music/movie piracy battles of the 2000’s. Just some very quick points off the top of my head; feel free to debate these in the comments.

First off, few appreciate the physical properties of a compact disc or DVD like they do a beautiful bound hardcover. I can’t imagine reading 2666 on a Kindle or iPad. There is something about the feeling of holding a bound paper copy in your hands that a screen can’t match. (And yes, I recognize that enthusiasts fetishize vinyl and 35mm film prints to the same degree, but for this analogy I’m using the most contemporary physical formats for each medium, the ones consumers buy the most.) Some readers might abstain from pirating a digital copy in favor of getting their hands on its analog counterpart.

Also, an author’s workday is usually very solitary, while it is usually necessary for a musician or filmmaker to work collaboratively (unless they’re recording everything themselves and taking care of post-production/distribution themselves). Living in an isolated creative bubble has its advantages and disadvantages—you obsess over Amazon reviews and the latest news items to come in from the Google alert you have on your name, so that you can see what people are saying about your book, including the announcement from a semi-legal blog that they've pirated your work. Just from my general observation, especially ticked off when someone pirates their work, even more than other artists.

Finally, and here's why book piracy both disturbs and intrigues me on some bizarre, visceral level—it's just text. The most low-bandwidth medium of all. If, in a few years, we get to the point where we have the equivalent of a premium torrent site for books, one could download an author’s entire life work formatted for their preferred e-reader for free in literally seconds, rather than minutes or hours for audiovisual content. Combine this with a publishing industry that’s learned nothing from the RIAA/MPAA’s mistakes and we have an environment where a culture of book piracy could mature exponentially faster than we’ve seen before.

What do you think? What do you enjoy about physical books versus their digital counterparts? Could you see yourself pirating a book in the future if you don't want to pay $30 for the new Stephen King? Have you already done so?