Where are we, generally speaking, in terms of encryption or other ways to protect digital books?
I don’t think anything is really foolproof at this time. Hardware types of encryption, like the Gemstar device, are probably safer than anything that is on an open platform for computers. And as a publisher, obviously, we are very concerned about this issue. We look at security as something which needs to be addressed, but the opportunity is so big that even if a couple of books get pirated it really would be cutting off your nose to spite your face if you delay in diving into this market. So, although it is an issue, so far we haven’t had any problems. We’ve been distributing ebooks for about eight months, and we haven’t heard of any cases of any piracy. We’ve been distributing 50 – 60 titles per month. I don’t think it’s like music, really, like with Napster. Books just aren’t as sexy as music. For some reason, people just aren’t as motivated to hack into ebooks. It’s less of a risk, really. Stephen King was the first author to get such tremendous publicity about publishing an ebook,
