The Frankfurt Book Fair is one of the largest gatherings of publishers and companies of its kind in Europe. The event just kicked off yesterday and many authors and companies are talking ebook piracy. Gottfried Honnefelder the head of the German Book Association said that over 60% of all book downloads in Germany are pirated books.
The plight of pirated books in Germany is attributed to the growing popularity in cloud based storage and file sharing websites. E-Readers have not really caught on in the country and the ebook market is a paltry .5%. Many people who own e-readers are tech savvy and find its easier to download books online.
Germany should experience growth with companies like Amazon and Kobo branching off into the country and more book retail companies start to carry more mainstream readers.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
