Simon & Schuster will offer authors data on how and when their books are being pirated online, CEO Carolyn Reidy said Thursday.
Simon & Schuster, like many other publishers, works with a company called Attributor “to track and remove infringing copies of digital, audio and print titles published by Simon & Schuster from online sites.” Authors will now have access to Attributor’s data through the Simon & Schuster Author Portal, which also lets them track their book sales. Literary agents will have access to the data as well.
Reidy laid out the piracy info that authors will receive:
“The reports that you will see provide information about the number of infringements identified and takedown notices sent to infringing sites, success rates in removing infringements, the types of sites where infringement is occurring, the specific urls and geographic distribution of sites where unauthorized copies are offered and more. (We expect that in the future we will expand upon the information currently available.)”
A screenshot of the type of data that authors will get is below.
Simon & Schuster’s move could lead the other publishers that work with Attributor to make piracy data available to publishers as well. Attributor was acquired by digital watermark company Digimarc in December.
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock / Ilona Baha
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