Australia Blocks Dozens of Pirate eBook Websites

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From GoodEReader:

Authorities in Australia have ordered internet service providers to block over 50 different piracy websites. These companies have 15 days to comply and it will be a blow to people who are downloading digital comics, ebooks, magazines and newspapers for free.

Graham Burke, Village Roadshow’s co-CEO and the head honcho of anti-piracy group Creative Content Australia (previously known as the IP Awareness Foundation), said: “This is a historic moment for Australia to have what is effectively 95% of the criminal trade blocked. The thieves who run pirate sites contribute nothing to Australia — they employ no one and pay no taxes here. Of the enormous profits they earn, not one cent goes back to the original creators of the content.”tent.”

. . . .

Earlier in the year a new study was published that looked into the type of people who pirated books the most. The study suggests that people aged between 30 and 44 years old with a household income of between $60k and $99k are most likely to grab a book without paying for it. Overall, the majority of illegal downloaders are relatively well-educated, with more than 70% having either graduated from college or in possession of a post graduate degree.

Link to the rest at GoodEReader

11 thoughts on “Australia Blocks Dozens of Pirate eBook Websites”

    • If the cited study is correct, the demographic that patronizes these pirates is the one that provides most of the Social Justice Warrior base that keeps them in office.

      So color me suspicious that this is simply a “See? We did something!” exercise.

    • It would make no difference.
      Hollywood (the biggest “victims”) has been fighting that fight for years to no effect.
      There are bigger things to waste time and money on.

  1. Is piracy really as much of an issue for Indies as it is for tradpub? Not those rotten swine who just republish other folks work as their own, that’s been discussed here before, but the Napster/Torrent/’put all the books online to download for free’ piracy…

    As a contract archaeologist I don’t have to worry about piracy from ‘sharing’ sites (I HOPE people are taking and using my work), but what do you folks who write and publish books and stories for money see?

    Al who’s curious

    • When I hear authors bragging of giving away tens of thousands of free ebooks in a promo I think of the authors (and musicians) who purposefully inject their content into pirate channels.

      I’m also reminded of David Carnoy’s odd article in 2011 where he “complained” about his book getting pirated and then proceeded to tell everybody who knew how to Google just how to get the torrent in question.

      Considering that just one of those torrents features more ebooks (mostly big name tradpub authors) than a person can read in a lifetime I’m inclined to believe the bottom line impact to any single author is minimal.

      • From what I’ve heard, it depends on the author. Some authors write in genres whose readership is heavily into pirating. Others don’t.

  2. From my perspective, fears of piracy overblown in most cases.
    I think that the biggest problem for all books, whether traditionally published or Indy, is obscurity and not piracy, which is why I am fairly okay with my books being pirated.
    Sure, I would like to be compensated which is why there is a Donate button in each of my books.
    I’m not surprised that Australia sees this as a grand victory though, considering their own Prime Minister claimed that the laws of mathematics don’t apply in Australia when it comes to encryption
    https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170714/10385237789/aussie-prime-minister-says-laws-math-dont-apply-australia-when-it-comes-to-encryption.shtml

  3. I wonder how long hacker work-arounds will be up and running globally (including AU) to circumvent this Aussie endeavor.

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