Latest news and statistics on book piracy. Information about the illegal downloading of ebooks and other forms of free books are collected from publishing companies, authors, and booksellers.
Electronic book piracy in Spain caused the book industry to lose up to $467 Million (€350 Million) in revenue, according to a report by the Federation of Publishers’ Associations and the ISBN Agency of Spain.
Book publishing in Spain is a €3 Billion industry.
Source: “Piracy Taking Big Bite out of Books in Spain?,” Digital Book World, January 22, 2013.
Children who sell pirated copies of books on the streets of Mumbai, India are paid roughly $2 (100 Indian Rupee) for each book that they sell.
An essay published in the New York Times interviewed child who would sell three pirated books a day and thus was earning more money than his father, who was working as a plumber.
Most of the children who sell pirated books in India are unable to read.
Source: Sonia Faleiro, “The Book Boys of Mumbai,” New York Times, January 4, 2013.
According to the Chairman of a Nigerian publishing company, book piracy activities in the country causes $125 Million (20 Billion Nigerian Naira) in losses to domestic publishing houses each year.
Books that are published in Nigeria are taken outside of the country and illegally copied and sold across Africa.
In the United States, the latest available figures on book piracy showed that $600 Million was lost to pirated books.
Source: Mohammed Shosanya, “Nigeria: Book Publishers Loses N20 Billion Annually to Piracy,” allAfrica, May 24, 2012.
In 2011, book publishers in India lost up to $387,000 (20 Million Indian Rupees) to book piracy. In the first three months of 2012, almost half that amount was estimated to have been lost to piracy.
In the city of Bangalore, the Central Crime Branch believes that there are over 20 underground chains of book piracy groups who copy books and sell them on the black market. Up to 5 pirated books groups enter the industry each year.
Authorities seized over 50,000 pirated copies of books in 2011 across the country.
Source: Sheetal Sukhija, “Enter the piracy kingdom of Bangalore,” IBN, April 14, 2012.
During raids conducted in December 2011, authorities seized over 100,000 pirated books in Pakistan, with a majority of the book being seized in the city of Lahore.
Every year, the government of Pakistan losses up to $221 Million (20 Billion Pakistan Rupees) in tax revenue due to the pirating of intellectual property within the country.
Source: Aroosa Shaukat, “Intellectual property: Lahore declared ‘centre of book piracy’,” Express Tribune, January 5, 2012.
At the end of 2011, an estimated 20 percent of all ebooks downloaded on to e-readers were believed to have been pirated.
In the United Kingdom, the Publishers Associated issued 115,000 legal notices to websites who were offering free pirated copies of books, an increase of 130 percent from the number of notices sent out in 2010.
Source: Sean Poulter, “Online pirates threaten Kindle profits as thousands turn to sites to download free eBooks,” Daily Mail, January 1, 2012.
In Peru, there are more pirated copies of books that are sold than there are of legitimate books. In addition, the pirated books publishing industry employs more people than the legal book industry and earns roughly the same amount of money.
The book industry association in Germany stated that around 60 percent of all e-books downloaded in the country are pirated.
As of 2011, the e-book market in Germany had about a 0.5 percent market share.
Source: Associated Press, “German book industry urges steps against illegal e-book downloads, though market remains tiny,” Washington Post, October 11, 2011.
Pirated books makes up to 85 percent of all sales in foreign language schools and universities in Vietnam.
The piracy rate for English language books itself was previously reported to be higher at 90 percent.
Source: “English schools face book-piracy lawsuit,” VietNam News, July 28, 2011.
Kenya Publishing Association reported that book industry loses $22 Million (2 Billion Kenyan Shilling) a year to piracy.
Source: Ashley Lime, “Sh2bn lost to book piracy every year,” Daily Nation, July 18, 2011.
