Will e-books end up like Napster?

I came across an intriguing article on the New York Times which compared the direction that e-books are heading to that of the music industry. "Will books be Napsterized?" asked Randall Stross. Before dismissing it as yet another rant not worthy of attention, consider that Stross is a professor of business at San Jose State University and a published author himself.

Stross observed how many books can be found on free file sharing sites such as RapidShare, Hotfile and Megaupload. While some like RapidShare respond promptly to legitimate take-down requests, he notes that the onus is with publishers to supply a specific URL. Even upon removal, infringing materials are often replaced within hours. In a nutshell, the situation is very much akin to how the music industry is deluged with pirated music files.

As an avid reader of e-books, I will say that I really don't mind the use of protection mechanisms as long as I get my e-books--even if a quiet corner of my mind wonders why I am paying for something of an inconvenience. However, what irks me is the fact that the industry is clearly not up to working in the new paradigm.

As an example, an e-book that I purchased from Barnes & Noble-owned FictionWise early last month failed to open on my BlackBerry-based reader software. It is clearly a technical issue--probably a corrupted source file--considering I have purchased and read 19 e-books since April. Well, more than a month later, the matter is still unresolved. This is not an isolated case either; a similar issue with Amazon-owned competitor Mobipocket literally took months to resolve.

Am I tempted to just find the unprotected electronic copy from an online source? You bet. However, while I am adamant not to participate in piracy, I am not so sure about others. While I won't expect authors to give their e-books away for free in order to pack arenas full of screaming fans anytime soon, publishers and e-book stores need to improve the distribution of legitimate e-books--and fast.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at the New York Times

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