Speaking of piracy: FutureBook, a digital blog associated with The Bookseller, follows up on publisher comments made Sunday that “online piracy was now a significant new cost faced by publishers”.
As ever, I ask, “How would you know?“
FutureBook focuses some of its attention on a novel aspect of the piracy claim. Apparently, the cost of piracy is so great that it limits publishers’ ability to pay higher royalty rates on digital products.
I don’t have an adequately informed perspective on what e-book royalty rates should be. Still, I am encouraged that publishers appear to be linking a business issue to the impact of piracy.
If the emerging argument is that piracy is a business expense, then we’re hopefully on the road toward quantifying that expense. That’s an outcome worth supporting.
