People worry about theft of their work more than they probably should. Without a doubt, a lot of electronically available information (books, music, art) is stolen, but what I remind people to focus on is this: 1) is someone else profiting from your work, and 2) are they actually cutting into
your profits?
With regard to the first one, if you find your work being sold somewhere without your consent, and it's in a country that has copyright laws (like the US), then you can usually put a stop to it quickly. If it's a country that has little regard for copyright, there's not much you can do, but that brings us to #2. Is the availability of the copied material actually cannabilizing your sales? Most often, the answer is no. For example, all of the Harry Potter books have been illegally scanned and are available to download for free, if you know where to look, yet hundreds of millions of these books have been sold. The fact is, particularly with something as inexpensive as an ebook, most people would rather just buy it legally than do the work involved to find it illegally, and those people who are downloading illegally probably don't have the money or the intention to pay for your book if they can't get it free. In other words, just because someone steals a copy of your book doesn't mean you lost a sale.
In fact, some authors have said that their work sold
better after being pirated, because readers discovered their work illegally, enjoyed it, and then spread the word about how good it was!
Hmm, this is turning into an essay. I think I feel another article coming on...
.
--Maria