Skip to main content

Your search for "Google Play Books" piracy got 26 results

19 Months Later, and Google Still Hasn’t Reopened Signups in Its Play Books Publishing Portal

It has been nineteen months since Google closed its book publisher portal in Google Play Books, and the larger blogosphere is just beginning to realize that it may never reopen.

A couple days ago 9to5Google pondered the same question I last asked in April: Will Google ever reopen the portal?

Google “temporarily” stopped allowing new publishers to sign up for its Google Play Books Partner Center more than a year ago, largely due to rampant piracy on the service. Now, a year and a half later (it was originally shuttered in May of 2015), the Partner Center still hasn’t opened back up…

 

…This was the initial statement that Google provided when Google stopped offering new signups, all the way back in May 2015:

We’ve temporarily closed new publisher sign ups in the Play Books Partner Center, so we can improve our content management capabilities and our user experience. We’re working to reopen this to new publishers soon. Thanks for your patience.

A support article entitled “How to sell a book on Google Play: a checklist” lists the following notice:

New publisher sign-ups in the Google Play Books Partner Center are temporarily closed.

Now, over at the Google Product Forums, there are still people posting about this asking if it will ever open back up. Even as recently as earlier this month, people interested in selling their books on Google Play Books have shared their conversations with support reps, revealing that exactly zero progress has been made.

to be clear, the portal is still open for those who already have an account there; Google just isn’t letting anyone new sign up.

Google shut down the registration feature on that portal on 25 May 2015. That was 19 months and 5 days ago, so at this point it is safe to say that Google is never going to reopen that portal.

At the very least, they are not saying anything about it. I have followed up on this story several times, and Google’s PR reps generally disappeared whenever I asked about their next step.

In fact, one rep gnawed his arm off at the wrist when I pressed him on the question (I still have his hand in my freezer).

So no, that portal is never opening again. While it might be useful to authors and publishers, from Google’s perspective it just isn’t worth the hassle.

Google doesn’t sell a lot of ebooks, and it doesn’t want to be bothered with cleaning up after pirates. The easiest and most effective way to fix the rampant piracy problem was to simply lock out the pirates by shuttering the portal, and then leaving it closed.

This is an inconvenience for authors and publishers, but not a huge one. They can reach Google Play books through distributors like Streetlib and Draft2Digital..

image by GuillermoJM

Will Google Ever Reopen Its eBook Publisher Portal?

3256789558_3a938e17fa_bEarlier today someone made the unsubstantiated declaration that Google had closed its publisher portal "forever". While there is zero evidence to back up that assertion, I fear that it will be proven correct.

It was around this time last year that I broke the news that Google had a industrial-scale piracy problem. I showed how ebook pirates were basically setting up their own ebookstores in Google play, pirating ebook after ebook with impunity. All Google did to fix the problem was to remove ebooks in response to DMCA notices and issue a bland statement about "taking the issue seriously".

Google proceeded to ignore the negative press coverage, but they did finally respond when the Dutch publishers trade group NUV demanded that Google fix it.

Google responded by closing the publisher portal to new signups on 25 May 2015, saying that:

We’ve temporarily closed new publisher sign ups in the Play Books Partner Center, so we can improve our content management capabilities and our user experience. We’re working to reopen this to new publishers soon. Thanks for your patience.

The Play Books Partner Center is Google’s equivalent of KDP. Authors and publishers (and pirates, for that matter) can use it to upload ebooks for sale through Google Play books.

If you have an account, that is. Google hasn’t let anyone sign up for a new account since last May, and you shouldn’t expect them to.

As I explained to a reader in March, Google has only a minimal interest in ebooks.  Google isn’t Amazon. One is a retailer, but Google is an ad network giant which is not driven by sales and really only wants ebooks so it can complete a checklist of content types.

Since Google has ebooks from publishers, and from distributors like Vearsa, Streetlib, and eBook Partnership, it doesn’t need to reopen that portal.

In short, the Play Books Partner Center probably will be closed forever (good luck getting Google to admit it, though).

image by cowbite

 

Google’s "Temporary" Shut Down of Its eBook Publisher Portal Approaches the Six-Month Mark

4345342575_c2493ed807_bWhen Google shut down stopped letting anyone sign up to use its book publisher portal earlier this year, they swore that this was a temporary move intended to give Google time to "improve our content management capabilities and our user experience".

That was six months ago, and the portal is still closed. As we approach the six-month anniversary on Friday, it’s time we start asking not when the portal will reopen, but _if_ Google plans to reopen it at all.

Edit: A reader has pointed out that I left out an important distinction. The portal is not closed entirely; it is closed to new signups. Thanks, Steve!

When the shutdown happened, it was widely assumed that Google was responding to the problem of rampant piracy in Google Play Books. Pirates were uploading ebooks willy-nilly, and each time an ebook was removed in response to a DMCA notice, the pirates would simply upload another copy.

Eventually Google did take action against the piracy, but only after pressure was applied by publishers. Google kicked the pirates out and shut down the portal, preventing them from simply setting up another account continuing the whack-a-mole game of piracy.

And so far as we could see, the shutdown worked; the piracy slowed to a trickle. And that’s great, but what’s not so great is that Google hasn’t taken any other action to fight ebook piracy in Google Play Books. Furthermore, the portal has not reopened at any point in the past six months, nor has Google said when it will reopen or what they are doing behind the scenes that would justify its continued closure.

Which leads me to my question: Does anyone else wonder whether Google will ever reopen the portal?

While that sounds absurd to anyone who wants to sell ebooks, it makes a lot of sense from Google’s viewpoint. Google cares more about not being bothered by piracy than they do about selling ebooks (the most recent Google Play Books update showed how little Google cares about ebooks).

Since a closed portal means Google won’t be hassled about ebook piracy, it makes more sense from Google’s viewpoint to leave the portal shuttered than it does open the portal again. That would require Google to actively fight piracy.

Would you care to lay odds on whether Google will keep the portal closed, and require authors and publishers to use aggregators (Vearsa, Streetlib, eBookPartnership, etc) from now on?

image by Johan Larsson

News Tips for The Digital Reader

828354236_22d044655a_bGot a hot news tip for me, or the latest breaking digital publishing news? Here’s how you can share it.

Since The Digital Reader’s launch in 2010, I’ve broken my share of stories, including new product launches, acquisitions like when Amazon bought Liquavista, or  the piracy problem in Google Play Books.

And I want to keep that trend going. You can reach me by email, Twitter, or through the form on the contact page. That form automatically generates an email and sends it to me.

And yes, your tip will be kept confidential or off the record.

image by rachaelvoorhees

Blasty Vaporizes Pirated Content in Google Search Results

blastyeBook pirates use Google’s search engine to attract downloaders, and scammers use it (along with fake pirated ebook pages) to find their next victim.

Until today authors and publishers had two options for dealing with the piracy in Google: File a DMCA notice themselves (an annoying process) or sign up with a general purpose anti-piracy outfit like Muso.

But now there’s a third option. A new anti-piracy service crossed my desk this week which focuses solely on removing links from Google search results.

Blasty is a startup that offers a hyper-focused service designed to solve just one part of the piracy problem.  It’s still in beta, and is currently limited to invite-only, but I’ve had the chance to take it for a spin.

The process is pretty simple. After you sign up and install the Chrome extension, all you have to do is identify the content you wish to protect (web articles, video, audio, ebooks, etc) and then use Blasty to run custom Google searches for each piece of of content.

Each search will look something like this (only probably with more links):

blasty dmca piracy
Each of the orange blast buttons will let you file a takedown notice with Google for that specific URL. But you can also click a link, confirm that the piracy is going on, and then file a notice.

Aside from setting up a blast and clicking a few buttons, everything is handled automatically by Blasty. There’s no effort to file a takedown notice, but you should take the time to confirm that piracy is occurring.

Blasty warned me that they track bogus takedown notices and could censure users:

blasty dmca piracy

That is actually one of several notices that Blasty showed me before they let me file my first DMCA takedown notice, which is another detail I like.

It’s better to be safe than sorry, which is is why you might want to also avail yourself of the option to whitelist websites so you don’t accidentally send a takedown notice to Goodreads.

OOO

As a blogger, I am intimately familiar with Google’s DMCA procedures, and I am overjoyed find a service that circumvents that frustrating process. This is not a complete solution to piracy, but it is a possible alternative for authors and publishers.

For example, Blasty can’t do anything about the more subtle types of piracy in the Kindle Store and Google Play Books, but it could make for a great tool for dealing with scammers who use fake pirated ebook listings as bait. (And yes, if the scammer is using a cover image and blurb, the copyright holder can file a takedown notice).

If you try Blasty, let us know what you think in the comments. I’m sure I’m not the only writer who is interested.

image by tsbl2000

 

 

Scammers Are Using Createspace to Spam Amazon With Pirated Textbooks

2256125610_15d392d389_bA reader has tipped me to the news that Amazon’s own website is a great source of pirated books.

Scot Schad discovered that pirates had been ripping off freely available digital textbooks, and then using Amazon’s POD service to sell print versions on Amazon.

Here’s how it works.

The scammers identify a popular textbook, copy the name, and then start selling the paper copy of a pirated book under that name.

They’re hoping to sell the pirated book to an unwary buyer who might mistake the knockoff for the legit textbook, and it must be working because they keep doing it.

Take, for example, Practical  Electronics for Inventors. This is a real textbook from a legit publisher, but if you search for it on Amazon you will find that at least two of the results lead to pirated scam textbooks with identical names but different authors.

One of those books, by Benjamin Ward, uses content pirated from a textbook published by BookBoon. The other, by Naomi A. Patterson, rips off the syllabus for a course taught at Amity University in India.

That second book is no longer available, but Patterson does have another textbook on Amazon. Her other book uses content pirated from a book published by SyncFusion.

Three pirated textbooks might not sound like much, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Schad identified a half-dozen other pirated POD textbooks on Amazon, and I found at least dozen other titles sold by the same "authors" of the pirated books.

For example, there’s a copy of Linear Algebra and Its Applications by the aforementioned Ben Ward. This book was pirated from a Linear Algebra textbook published by Bookboon.

I also found dozens of books from those "authors" which were no longer available but also showed every sign of having been pulled because they were pirated.

This copy of Windows Azure for Students, for example, contains work originally published by SyncFusion. The book is no longer available, but the scammer is still in operation on Amazon, and the other scammers show a similar work history.

It is difficult to say how long this operation has been going on (months? years?), but I would say that we are looking at industrial scale pirates second only to the ones that used to infest Google Play Books (it looks like Google has fixed the problem).

The only real difference is that these scammers are targeting POD textbooks, rather than ebooks, and that the POD scammers are going after even the most arcane title.

Schad told me that he learned of this problem when the scammers copied the name of his graduate paper:

I only noticed the problem when two clones of my M.S. thesis appeared on Amazon. My title, Hydrocarbon Potential of the Caney Shale in Southeastern Oklahoma, is about as obscure as it gets. Amazingly, the two bogus books pretending to be mine boasted that they were the second edition!

Schad complained directly to Jeff Bezos, and those books are gone now, but Amazon continues to sell the other pirated textbooks.

And Amazon isn’t just selling the pirated textbooks; Amazon is also advertising the textbooks through its ad network:42

But wait, there’s more.

This isn’t just a problem with pirated books on Amazon. What you see here are signs of a fundamental problem with one of Amazon’s platforms.

All of the textbooks mentioned above, as well as all the other textbooks published by these scammers, were distributed through Createspace.

And that is a huge problem for everyone because Createspace doesn’t just distribute to Amazon’s website.

These books are available through every online book retailer that has a contract with Createspace. That Ward’s Linear Algebra, for example, is available from Amazon sites around the globe as well as Powell’s, Abe Books, Half.com, and Barnes & Noble.

A quick check of BookFinder shows that the "author" in question has a half dozen other books to his name, all of which were distributed by Createspace, and all of which are widely available.

OOO

Folks, Amazon has a well-deserved reputation for keeping pirated, public domain, and spam ebooks out of the Kindle Store. They earned that reputation by keeping a close eye on ebooks uploaded to the KDP portal and discouraging or deleting undesirable books.

The pirated textbooks mentioned above are not available in the Kindle Store because the pirates know that Amazon would catch on quickly, but unfortunately Amazon’s vigilance does not extend to its other platforms.

Createspace clearly does not have the same safeguards as KDP.

But something tells me that Amazon will make it a priority to address this issue.

image by Marcus Jeffrey

Google Shutters Its Play Books Publisher Portal in Order to "Improve Its Content Management Capabilities"

google play booksDo you know how I’ve been harping on the rampant commercial piracy in Google Play Books (four posts in the past month)?

I think Google finally got the message. I’ve just read on Twitter, and confirmed from a second source, that Google has closed the tr to new users.

Update: As of late November, the portal is still closed to new sign ups.

The Partner Center is Google’s name for the place where authors and publishers upload books to sell in Google Play. It is now closed to new registrations, and anyone who tries to sign up will see this:

Partner Center google play books

I’m still waiting for a response from Google (it’s Memorial Day), but I can tell you at this time that this is what they told the Sell More Books Podcast:google play books partner center

If you can’t see the image, a Google rep posted the text in the support forums:

We’ve temporarily closed new publisher sign ups in the Play Books Partner Center, so we can improve our content management capabilities and our user experience. We’re working to reopen this to new publishers soon. Thanks for your patience.

To be clear, this has now been confirmed from several sources.

I could be jumping to conclusions, but it looks to me like Google has decided that it was time they took piracy seriously, and apparently their first step is to stop letting pirates set up new accounts. This is temporary, of course, and will probably only last until Google has added algorithms which will actively identify and flag pirated ebooks in Google Play Books (ideally, something like ContentID in Youtube).

I’ve said this before but it bears repeating.

More so than any other ebook retailer, Google has a problem with rampant commercial ebook piracy. Thanks to Google’s complete indifference, ebook pirates can set up shop in Google Play Books – and I mean that literally – and upload copy after copy after copy of a pirated ebook secure in the knowledge that Google won’t do anything more than respond to a specific DMCA notice.

And now that is going to change (or so I hope).

While I would like to take the credit, Google would probably still be ignoring this issue if not for the fact that the Dutch publishers trade group NUV, or Nederlands Uitgeversverbond, took an interest after Google said that there was nothing they could do about an obvious commercial ebook pirate.

As I reported in my last post, the NUV is far more powerful than a lone blogger or individual publishers. It has the resources both to file an expensive lawsuit and to launch a PR campaign to embarrass Google, but more importantly the NUV also has the connections and the gravitas to grab Google’s attention and make Google fix the problem.

And I think the NUV got Google’s attention. It was two days after I published my last post that Google stopped accepting new registrations in the Partner Center.

The Partner Center has been locked for 5 days now while Google is doing something behind the scene. They have yet to share any details but let’s hope that includes adding ways to detect pirates.

I am of course waiting for a response from Google. If you hear something, please leave a message and let me know.

Stay tuned.

Thanks, @SellMoreBookShow and @MJ Guns!

Google Says "Google Play Takes Copyright Seriously"

google play booksEarlier this week I broke the news that Google had a rampant piracy problem in Google Play Books, and today Google has finally responded.

Far more so than most ebookstores, Google is a safe haven where pirates can operate with impunity. Pirates can upload copy after copy of a pirated ebook, secure in the knowledge that Google won’t delete their account. This leaves authors and publishers with little recourse but to play a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.

Luckily that game is coming to an end. Google told me today that they feel authors' pain:

Google Play takes copyright seriously. We take swift action when we receive a DMCA complaint, which the copyright holder can complete here. Additionally, we’re constantly improving our systems to provide a better experience.

Yes, they take this issue very seriously – just not seriously enough to actually do anything.

When I asked what Google was doing to fight piracy in Google Play Books, they were unable to name a single activity. When I asked what it would take to get a commercial ebook pirate banned from Google Play Books, the Google rep was unable to even confirm that they would even ban a pirate after dozens of valid DMCA notices. When I asked what improvements they planned to make, none came to mind.

But that should not worry you; Google Play takes copyright seriously. It says so right there in their statement.

Folks, when I first covered this issue on Monday morning I suggested that it would take either a lawsuit filed by publishers or lots of pressure+publicity before Google would take an interest in fighting piracy in Google Play Books.

Viacom sued Youtube, and we got ContentID. The RIAA and MPAA spent years beating up Google over search results, and Google started deranking pirate site from its search results.

Unless and until the Big Five decide to pursue one path or the other, Google simply won’t give a damn.

How to Get Google to Swat eBook Pirates? Public Shaming (Nothing Else Works)

5476072892_89a5f82745_oGoogle has yet to officially respond to Monday’s post on the rampant piracy in Google Play Books, but my work is already having a visible effect.

On Tuesday I noticed that the ten pirate accounts I called out in Monday’s post had all been disabled. The author listings have vanished, and so far as I can see the listings for the pirated ebooks are no longer visible in Google Play (the ebooks I purchased are still there, though).

That is good news, but I would not celebrate just yet. Google may have swatted a handful of ebook pirates, but they have not addressed the underlying problems which led to the rampant ebook piracy.

Google has not enacted any policies to fight piracy, and the industrial-scale ebook piracy will continue until they do so. They have only removed a handful of the more blatant pirates and leaving the more subtle pirates to continue their operations.

If you would like to find examples of pirated ebooks in Google Play Books, simply search for an author’s name: Douglas Adams, for example.

If you look closely you will see that there are 4 copies listed for Mostly Harmless or The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (to name a couple of examples). One copy is published by Del Rey, two copies are foreign editions published by Macmillan, and one copy is published by Fire & Ice Books.

That last copy is almost certainly a pirated ebook. It is priced at $1.99, while the legit copies are priced at $5.99 and above.

While I can’t guarantee that those Adams ebook are pirated, the pirated copy of Mario Puzo’s works is easier to spot:

mario puzo pirate ebooks google play

The Penguin-published copies of The Godfather are priced at $7 and above, but the pirated copy I just bought cost me $1.99, came with a generic cover, and was published by Fire & Ice Books. That publisher also offered other pirated books in the series.

Another useful trick for finding pirate ebooks is to search for last name, first name. For example, King,Stephen reveals a long list of defunct listings for pirated ebooks.

Or you could search for Roberts, Nora, and note that some of the pirates had been allowed to upload the same ebook 4 or 5 times. Several of those pirates have since moved on to pirating other titles, but are still active in Google Play Books.

What’s more, Google’s piracy problem extends beyond just English language books. For example, Google Play Books is home to both a legal and a pirated copy of the Spanish language version of George RR Martin’s A Storm of Swords.  That helpful pirate has in fact uploaded the first 3 books in the series, and is selling them at a reduced price.

Speaking of GoT, that brings me to another industrial-scale pirate operating in Google Play Books; Ispanyolca was pirating Spanish translations of popular novels, including 50 Shades, Hunger Games, and Game of Thrones (source).

Luckily for us it too was swept up in the Tuesday morning cull.

On Monday I wrote that Google is not doing a damn thing to fight piracy in Google Play, but as we can see today that is not entirely true. They can be shamed into taking action.

Now if only that action would extend to changing their policies, then we would be going somewhere. Google may be the king of search engines and know more about algorithmic filtering than anyone, but they have yet to turn any of their tools to fighting piracy in Google Play Books.

Google will only respond to DMCA notices, and will only remove the specific titles mentioned in a notice. Under Google’s current policy, pirates are allowed to continue operating no matter how many ebooks are removed (the Tuesday morning cull was an exception).

Remember, on Monday I showed you that at least one of the industrial-scale ebook pirated had been operating in Google Play Books for several weeks (at a minimum), even though it was blindingly, nay, algorithmically obvious that it was a pirate operation.

In comparison, the other major ebookstores will close accounts after enough DMCA notices; Amazon, in fact, will suspend an account that receives too many complaints about issues as trivial as the formatting, much less piracy.

But Google will allow pirates to continue to harm authors and publishers. And yes, authors are being harmed.

It’s not just that they are losing revenues in Google Play Books; a pirated ebook in Google Play Books can impact sales in the Kindle Store and elsewhere.

As any author or publisher can tell you, Amazon aggressively watches prices in competing stores. If Amazon finds a lower price they will match that price in the Kindle Store. It doesn’t matter if it is a pirated copy or a legit copy; Amazon doesn’t care.

I’ve been told by several sources, including an author who saw it first-hand, that Amazon will price-match against a pirated ebook. I was also told that:

I have yet to confirm the tweet with a first hand report, but I do have a similar report from a second source.

I can also tell you that it is in keeping with Amazon’s ToS for KDP, and that it fits with Amazon’s sometimes capricious behavior (publishers have been banned for less).

Now if only Google would adopt a similar policy for pirates; that would solve a lot of the piracy problems.

Alas, Google won’t even fully remove the pirated ebooks, much less ban the pirates themselves. When Google gets a DMCA notice, they will disable the buy button on a listing but leave the listing visible. You will still be able to see the cover image, description, and other details. For example: (one, two, three).

The cover image and description are copyrighted, so leaving them visible would arguably mean that Google has not actually complied with the DMCA notice. But given all of the other bad policies Google has in place, that is a relatively minor issue.

The real issue here is the ease with which you can find pirated ebooks in Google Play Books, and Google’s general silence on the issue.

As always, Google was contacted several before I published this post. They were first contacted Sunday night, and as of Tuesday evening they have so far declined to respond. Should they respond I will amend this post.

image by victoria white2010

 

 

Russia’s Cold eBook War Could Soon Turn Very Hot

1387630903_1dc12a170b_b[1]When Amazon launched the Kindle in the US they had very little competition, but the same won’t be said if and when the Kindle Store launches in Russia. Over the past week, two different Russian retail giants have each made an investment in a Russian ebook startup.

Ozon.ru, one of Russia’s largest web retailer, picked up an investment in the Russian ebookstore LitRes last week. And it was only today that Ulmart, Russia’s other largest web retailer, backed a $3 million Series A funding round in the subscription ebook service Bookmate (press release).

LitRes and Bookmate have very different business models, but they each now have the backing of a major retailer, and that is going to make them serious competition to the Kindle when it launches in Russia (my guess) some time in 2015.

litres logoLitRes is the more traditional of the pair. It is the leading ebook retailer in Russia and boasts a catalog of over 400,000 Russian language titles in print, digital, and audio from over 100 publishers. It has developed apps for iOS and Android, including an etextbook app and an ereader home screen app,  and it has also rebranded a couple ebook readers. It has also developed a reputation as a copyright bully, which might help it sign deals with publishers.

The $5 million that LitRes raised last week was the second round of financing in the past year; they also raised $5 million in October 2013 from investors including the Russian Internet Technology Fund.

Last week’s money comes from Ozon.ru, a web retailer with $250 million USD in revenue in 2012. Ozon.ru, which just raised $150 million in capital last month, presented the deal as a way "to further develop its digital content offer, to strengthen LitRes’s leading position on its market, and to consolidate efforts to develop a legal e-book market in Russia."

It’s not clear how LitRes will use the new funding, but I do know that they currently have one two international competitor. iBooks and Google Play Books has have each launched a local ebookstore in Russia. All of this investment comes in anticipation of a burgeoning market. The Russian ebook market is estimated to have reached $15 million last year, less than 1% of the overall Russian book market.

bookmate logoLitRes is also facing lateral competition from Bookmate. This ebook company raised a $3 million Series A funding round from Ulmart, a billion dollar a year retailer which is said to be eying an IPO.

Bookmate offers an ebook subscription service. With a catalog of 400,000 books and deals with over 300 publishers globally, Bookmate boasts a userbase of one and a half million active monthly users in Russia, the Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. That is more than double the 600,000 subscribers they had in February (according to the email they sent me at the time).

Around 7% of Bookmate’s users are paying subscribers who fork over $5 a month. Other than the paying customers, it’s not clear what their business model is. But the press release does say that "Bookmate connects publishers and authors with new markets and monetization channels by partnering with Mobile Network Operators (MNO’s), Device Manufacturers, online retailers and local government", whatever that means.

Bookmate’s expansion plans are explicitly aimed at non-US markets. According to James Glynn, Bookmate’s spokesperson: "We aren’t trying to be an ebook subscription service for the already crowded US market, (Oyster, Scribd and Entitle are already there and established)…but for the rest of the world," he told me in an email. "We are especially focusing on emerging markets and taking the experience we have learnt from the Russian market to new markets in 2014. It’s a proven model that opens up new revenue streams for publishers in emerging markets and it is a great reading experience that encourages users to discover new books."

Bookmate has launched in Turkey and plans to expand into Scandinavia and Latin America by the end of 2014.

In a way, LitRes is the local Russian competitor that Amazon is going to have to worry about while Bookmate is both a local and global competitor that Amazon and Scribd will have to worry about – Nuvem de Livros as well, given Bookmate’s plans for Latin America. That Brazilian ebook subscription service may be based in Brazil but it too has announced plans to expand into Latin America in 2014.

image by BBM Explorer

A Flawed Survey Shows Amazon Has 79% of eBook Market in UK, 11% of Brits Use eBooks, and Other Nonsense

2236132379_7c0c6ea272[1]There’s a new survey out today for Ofcom, and if you have already read about the survey in The Bookseller then I suggest that you forget what you read. The survey report is bogus.

The ebook survey was conducted as part of a larger survey into media consumption habits in the UK. While I cannot criticize the specific of what’s wrong with other sections of the survey, the section on ebooks was tragically and obviously flawed.

A total of 5734 Brits were polled by Kantar Media for the survey, and of that number a total of 631 had reported using ebooks in the past 3 months.

That is only 11% of the survey group, and is a rather small figure. It is also somewhat unlikely to be true or accurate.

Past surveys have shown that somewhere between a third of adults in the UK and a third of UK household own an ereader. I’m not going to insist that one survey or another is more likely to be accurate, but I do wish to point out that they contradict and should be taken with a grain of salt.

And that’s not the only example of this survey report’s questionable accuracies. There’s a second huge goof in the report that renders one of the more important results completely worthless.

I am referring to the chart in the survey report that listed where respondents got their ebooks.

Amazon ranked first, with about 79% of respondents reporting that they got some or all of their ebooks from the retail giant. Of course, that survey question also showed that not all of that 79% got all their ebooks via Amazon; many also sourced their ebooks elsewhere.

iBooks was the second most popular (9%), with Google (search engine, 8%), Google Play Books(6%), and eBooks.com (6%) rounding out the top 5.

If you’re wondering why a search engine beat out ebookstores as a source of ebooks, you can skip the obvious answer (piracy). While the survey report is framing this as sources for ebooks, that is not what was asked in the actual survey.

This data set and the graph made from it is based on an entirely unrelated survey question. It didn’t actually ask where the respondents got their ebooks; the question asked where they were "downloading, streaming/accessing, or sharing computer software" and then collated the answers of the 638 who had accessed ebooks.

Yes, the firm that conducted the survey mixed up a question from a different section of the survey and hoped we wouldn’t notice. Seriously, you can double check this on page 56 of the report. Read the fine print and you’ll see I’m right.

This survey report goes on to try to offer a granular analysis of the the survey group’s buying and downloading habits, but given the issues with the "ebook sources" chart and the issue with the accuracy of the 11%, I am going to discard the rest of the report.

It is Bunk.

Report (PDF)

image by lejoe

P.S. I found this story via The Bookseller, who reported that Amazon had 79% of the UK ebook market. No, really.