Digital eBOok piracy
–a product of the digital economy
presented by Zoe Zhu
The prevalence of personal computers and the Internet has led to the proliferation of “pirate” consumption nowadays, meaning the unauthorized usage and distribution of copyrighted works. As the world progresses and we invest more time, energy, and money into intangible goods that satisfy our pursuit of entertainment, beauty, and science, intellectual property becomes a part of the price we pay for the products we buy out of the special designs as if we pay the tax for the innovation. A world with no intellectual property protection might lead to products with no guarantee. For example, a cup of Starbucks coffee a person buys could just be a cup with the Starbucks logo but the liquid inside might not be coffee. People in the creative industry would not have enough financial support to sustain their lives and would need to flee the unpredictable market. However, on the bright side, the price of the patent products might drop and the money that is currently invested in the major creative industry might be spread to other smaller industries and creative products could still be produced with all the available resources. As of now, there has not been a perfect solution to maximize the positive side of intellectual property law and minimize the negative side of it. Thus, people pirate the content.
About
Quite a few research has been done on music piracy, video game piracy, and film piracy but not so much on ebook.
While I was a graduate student at NYU, I wrote a story about the shutdown of Z-Library, the notorious eBook piracy site, in November 2022 and its comeback in March 2023.
Then, in my platform and society class I took at NYU, I wrote a research paper analyzing the informality of Z-Library using the walk-through method showing how Z-Library while operating under a highly informal model, tries to make itself seem more formal to the user.
I want to put these two project together to build this website so that people can know more about the different opinions on digital ebook piracy.
The author
Zoe Zhu
Credits
Columbia Journalism School
New York University
Book Recommendations
The Informal Media Economy
Lobato, Ramon, and Julian Thomas
Intellectual Property
Siva Vaidhyanathan
Custodians of the Internet
Tarleton Gillespie
Free Culture
Lawrence Lessig