Pirates Nab Stephen King E-book

Hackers zapped the encryption technology used to protect Stephen King's e-book, sending pirated copies onto the Web for free distribution of an item that sold for $2.50 and was commonly given away for free as a promotion.

Len Kawell, president of Glassbook Inc., one of the publishers
that are electronically distributing King's "Riding the Bullet," told
Newsbytes this afternoon that he knows of two sites upon which
pirated versions of the e-book were posted, and that publishers
are working with the FBI to find the encryption breakers and be
sure the sites and other Internet rogues do not offer the counterfeit
copies.

Pirates used some type of "cracking" method to open the PDF file that
King's book was in, Kawell said. "Piracy is inevitable. There is no
technological solution to piracy. There are laws that have been
enacted by the government outlawing copyright infringement of
materials posted on the Internet," he said.

Earlier this month the 16,000-word novella was posted at Glassbook
and several other sites for electronic distribution at a cost of $2.50
each. A number of sites, as a promotional tool, offered the e-book
free of charge, said Kawell.

Kawell does not believe the episode will stand in the way of
e-book distribution, noting that demand for the King e-book is as high
now as it was the first day it became available. "We're fulfilling
many thousands of orders every day. It's incredibly popular."

The book, described by King as "a ghost story in the grand
manner," will not be published in printed form, Simon & Schuster said.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com.