I’m amazed by this pirate’s chutzpah
Chutzpah – the quality of audacity, for good or for bad
Dianna Dilworth passed me an email the other day. She’d gotten an email pitch from a new ebookstore, and she didn’t have time to write about it. I’m glad she forwarded it to me because it’s deeply amusing.
I’m always in favor of giving at least a basic blurb for every ebookstore I come across, so I visited the site in order to give it a basic once over. It looks like it’s using a standard e-commerce theme, and at first glance is professionally built (from a kit). The layout is good, and at first glance the prices are decent.
But then I notice that all the ebooks for sale were cheap PDF bundles, which tips me off: this is probably a pirate site. The impossibly cheap Stephanie Meyer bundle only confirmed it.
You might expect me to get pissed, but I admire this pirate’s chutzpah. He actually sent a link to the press in the hopes we’d talk about his site. This is one person who has big brass balls, and I find that amusing.
He’s still a filthy stinking pirate, though. But so long as I’m on the topic:
How to Tell It’s a Pirate Site
There are a couple of basic ways to tell that you’re dealing with pirated ebooks. Basically you’ll need to become an informed consumer.
- First, does the site have content not (legally) available anywhere else? For example, search for Harry Potter series. That series is still not (legally) available anywhere, so its presence is a sure sign of piracy.
- Second, are the ebooks free? What about free after a subscription? If you find a lot of commercial ebooks for free then it’s probably not legal.
- Third, can you get those commercial ebooks as cheap bundles? If the site only sells bundles then it’s probably not lega.
- Fourth, Does the site say anything about DRM? Most commercial ebooks are encumbered by Digital Restrictions Management. If a given title has DRM elsewhere, but not on a suspect site, then the suspect site is probably pirate.
P.S. Let me cover 1 exception to the rule before anyone adds it in the comments. Some publishers have their own sites, and some are even DRM free. O’Reilly and Baen Books are a couple good examples.
P.P.S. If you’re not sure about whether a site is legit, you can leave a comment and ask me. Or you can go ask over at MobileRead. There are any number of people who will help you with this.
Comments
fjtorres March 22, 2011 um 7:35 am
Of course, there are "consumers" to whom the piracy is the whole point of the exercise. 😉
monopole March 22, 2011 um 9:43 am
First, does the site have content not (legally) available anywhere else? For example, search for Harry Potter series. That series is still not (legally) available anywhere, so its presence is a sure sign of piracy.
There, I fixed it for you…
It really does verge on the absurd when a series of books which is nearly omnipresent on the web cannot be legally downloaded. Sort of like refusing to sell a DVD of a movie in times square while it’s playing on every video screen in a continuous loop. and then complaining about it.
Nate the great March 22, 2011 um 12:39 pm
That does improve it, thanks.
TopherGl March 22, 2011 um 3:23 pm
Good to know! Of course, I’ve never looked into buying anywhere but through Amazon.
Booksprung » How to spot a pirate ebook site March 22, 2011 um 5:11 pm
[…] Digital Reader has posted a handy list of four ways to spot a pirate ebookstore. A quick […]
eBooks – Wie man einen illegalen Download-Shop erkennt | eBook-Fieber March 25, 2011 um 8:02 am
[…] wie erkennt man nun einen illegalen eBook-Download-Shop? The Digital Reader hat einmal 4 Anzeichen aufgelistet, die auf einen Piraten-Shop schließen lassen, obwohl das nicht […]