While I am a strong advocate of open access to scholarly literature (see post below), I also believe in respecting copyright. This article from Inside Higher Ed describes the problem of "pre-publication digital editions [from university presses] ... ending up on ... piracy Web sites." The piracy websites mostly are headquartered outside the United States in jurisdictions with "relatively loose copyright laws, at least as applied to digital publishing." Princeton University Press, a popular target for the book pirates, was able to have "several hundred books removed from Web sites where they were being offered free" in the last year. Despite vigilance on the part of the publisher, pirated versions of its books and those of other publishers are still being made available on the Internet.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Book Pirates Strike Again!
While I am a strong advocate of open access to scholarly literature (see post below), I also believe in respecting copyright. This article from Inside Higher Ed describes the problem of "pre-publication digital editions [from university presses] ... ending up on ... piracy Web sites." The piracy websites mostly are headquartered outside the United States in jurisdictions with "relatively loose copyright laws, at least as applied to digital publishing." Princeton University Press, a popular target for the book pirates, was able to have "several hundred books removed from Web sites where they were being offered free" in the last year. Despite vigilance on the part of the publisher, pirated versions of its books and those of other publishers are still being made available on the Internet.
This is especially tough as the academic presses are on the ropes, financially. Though, I guess I don't know how many users go to the pirated online versions....
ReplyDeleteFrom the Above the Law blog comes this post about the trial of the book pirates which is currently under way in Sweden: http://abovethelaw.com/2009/02/the_pirate_bay_trial.php.
ReplyDelete