Digital Piracy

(from Publisher's Weekly)

Simon & Schuster this morning issued a new policy statement regarding its stance about the online piracy of digital books. The statement notes that as sales of digital books becomes a bigger piece of the book business, combating unauthorized copying and posting of material “requires vigilance and innovation. We work to stop online piracy as promptly as we can,” explaining that when piracy is discovered the S&S legal department “acts quickly to notify site operators and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) by issuing copyright infringement notices both for electronic versions of our books and for the sale of unauthorized physical editions at online booksellers.”

The statement also includes a site, www.simonandschuster.biz/antipiracy, where anyone can send information regarding suspected acts of piracy as well as creating an online form to facilitate reporting of piracy, antipiracy@simonandschuster.com. S&S acknowledged that copyright enforcement of online piracy “is by its very nature an imperfect science. But as the potential for this kind of behavior is amplified in the digital world, keeping our content secure, enforcing our copyrights, and creating a robust marketplace for easily accessible, reasonably priced content will be the pillars upon which we build our future as a digital publisher.

The statement is being e-mailed to all author, agents and others in the book community. An S&S spokesperson said no particular incident lead to the development of the statement, but added that S&S was interested in communicated a policy about where it stood on digital piracy while providing a forum for agents, authors and others to help the publisher fight unauthorized use of its content.