Students Found to Rely on Pirated Textbooks to Save Costs
A study conducted by NetNames has revealed an unlikely source for the bulk of ebook piracy: students. The online security company further revealed that the extent of piracy is even more startling, with no less than 76% of digital content meant for academic available to be downloaded free from pirate sites. NetNames searched for 50 specific textbooks across five disciplines – medicine, mathematics, science, engineering, and business – and found 38 to be available from one e-book sharing site completely free.
Experts pegged the high rate of piracy as far as academic ebooks are concerned to the high price tag that these typically cost. Some of the ebooks can be priced as high as £80 – £90, which has forced the students to look for other ways of acquiring them. The typical mindset at work here is that many of the ebooks will be of use to them for a few months to about a year at the most, which prompts them to seek other alternatives so as not to end up drawing too much from their student finance loans.
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
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A study conducted by NetNames has revealed an unlikely source for the bulk of ebook piracy: students. The online security company further revealed that the extent of piracy is even more startling, with no less than 76% of digital content meant for academic available to be downloaded free from pirate sites. NetNames searched for 50 specific textbooks across five disciplines – medicine, mathematics, science, engineering, and business – and found 38 to be available from one e-book sharing site completely free.
