‘Freakonomics’, another classic in the business section, saw a 104% increase in downloads, going from 187 to 381. ‘How We Decide’ saw an even bigger surge in downloads — 140% — as downloads went from 56 to 134.The three remaining books from the list that we tracked on BitTorrent are ‘The Tipping Point’, ‘How Women Decide’ and ‘The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People’. These three titles all saw an increase in downloads, 21%, 47% and 71% respectively, with absolute download numbers after the iPad launch of 192, 52 and 82.
It's an interesting study, but I think they might be looking in the wrong direction. TorrentFreak only looked at bestsellers and bestselling business titles. I bet if they looked at science fiction backlist, they'd see a different story. How much has Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series increased on the torrents since the iPad launch? How about World War Z or Boneshaker or work by William Gibson?
Early adopters and tech-minded people tend to be sci-fi and fantasy fans, and sci-fi and fantasy fans are much more into backlist than business readers are. This isn't like the music industry, where one thing is hot at any given moment, causing the torrents to all run in one direction. I think it's a mistake to look at bestsellers for book piracy; I bet the tide is rising in different, broader ways than TorrentFreak is considering.
