The Attributor Reports Rampant eBook Piracy

Attributor, an independent company that monitors illegal content use for its clients, has just released a report detailing rampant eBook piracy on file-sharing sites across the Web. According to the report, eBook piracy represents as much as $2.75 billion in losses to the publishing industry.

Attributor’s report indicates that 10,000 copies of every book published are pirated, and that piracy represents 10% of US book sales. Now, don’t those numbers seem a little high? Check out the full report (linked above) to see the results broken down in terms of the seven genres Attributor tracked, as well as other factors.

No doubt many publishers are panicking over these findings, and feel their suppor for DRM is justified. But, as was quickly pointed out on Twitter, the Attributor report does not take into account the relationship between piracy and sales, as Brian O’Leary of Magellan Media does. So what do you think? Are Attributor’s findings as relevant as they might seem?

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