Scott Turow recently moaned about The Slow Death of the American Author, and one of his examples was Russia, where, he said:
I don't think quite enough is made of how very underdeveloped the 'legal' e-market in Russia is -- publishers don't seem to have bothered that much trying to develop it (perhaps in part because of some piracy-fatalism ...) -- but it's interesting to hear that, as Mikhail Osin, head of digital sales at OZON.ru explains/complains:
There is only a handful of publishers left, while e-publishing is savaged by instantaneous piracy that goes almost completely unpoliced.There's a lot more to the Russian situation (which was dire before e-books became a problem -- the post-Soviet transition wreaked havoc which they haven't recovered from yet), but, yes, piracy is an issue -- as made clear by the plaintive cry of Читай легально (yes, a dedicated website begging readers to: 'read legally') as, as Alisa Orlova now reports at Russia Beyond the Headlines, Russian writers urge readers to read legally (as, apparently, there's now some way to 'read' illegally ...).
I don't think quite enough is made of how very underdeveloped the 'legal' e-market in Russia is -- publishers don't seem to have bothered that much trying to develop it (perhaps in part because of some piracy-fatalism ...) -- but it's interesting to hear that, as Mikhail Osin, head of digital sales at OZON.ru explains/complains:
"In 2010, OZON.ru became the first company to introduce an e-reader for the Russian market that allowed its users to buy books online and sync their purchases. Unfortunately, the project was a failure," said Osin.(I note: 2010 ? That's when they started offering a dedicated e-reader ? Maybe a little bit late in the day, no ?)
"In practice, Russians usually only use such devices to store their collections of pirated books, and this tendency can be observed even today".