Digital piracy is often associated with illegally downloaded music and movies. But more recently, textbooks have joined the trend.
On Feb. 24, six book publishers released a statement announcing a successful legal attempt to prevent Rapidshare, a file-sharing website, from allowing copyrighted works to be uploaded and illegally viewed on the site.
The lawsuit was filed on Feb. 4 by Bedford, Freeman and Worth, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, Wiley, McGraw-Hill and Pearson Education. The publishers wrote in the statement that Rapidshare “will be subject to substantial fines for non-compliance.”
Some Penn students admit to having illegally downloaded books in the past.
“Some books aren’t available in India,” said a student from India who admitted to have pirated books but preferred to remain anonymous. “If it’s so easily available online, it’s just convenient.”
The student added that abroad, “there are anti-piracy laws, but they are not at all implemented” — unlike in the U.S. where “the consequences … are much bigger.”
Wiley spokeswoman Susan Spilka explained that the court decision should “cause Rapidshare and other file-hosting sites to respect the law and the rights of those who have created the copyright-protected works through filtering.”
“I hope … they will understand the consequences of their actions,” Spilka wrote in an e-mail.
Edward McCoyd, executive director for digital, environmental and accessibility affairs for the Association of American Publishers, explained that although novels, professional and general-interest books are among those pirated, “college textbooks are certainly a part of the equation.”
AAP raises awareness of the dangers involved in illegal file sharing on college campuses, which include viruses, legal violations and violations of collegiate codes of conduct, according to McCoyd.
Although the lawsuit was filed independently of AAP, all publishing groups involved in the court case are members of the organization.
According to McCoyd, AAP’s Online Piracy Working Group, which was created in 2002, consists of member publishing houses to actively combat book piracy.
He explained that the committee hires vendors to conduct periodic monitoring of file-sharing sites. Vendors use book titles, publisher names and ISBN numbers to find “digitized versions of copyrighted books that the publishers didn’t authorize the free distribution of,” McCoyd said.
Apart from book-piracy enforcement, AAP also promotes digitized versions of authorized materials, such as e-books.
“We are concerned that piracy can stand in the way of the development of the e-book marketplace,” he said.
McCoyd said digital-book piracy is “a worldwide phenomenon.”
Despite efforts to mitigate book piracy, illegal downloading continues to rise, according to McCoyd.
“You can never completely eradicate piracy,” McCoyd said, adding that AAP does what it can “to push it to the margins.”
