By Edward Nawotka

This week’s digital book conference in Sao Paolo, Brazil featured an extensive panel discussion on piracy. Publishers in Brazil are themselves extremely concerned by the threat of digital pirates hijacking their costly content, especially in the education sector where pirated copies of non-DRM textbooks might easily proliferate. One panelist noted at piracy proves, at the very least, that there is demand in the marketplace for a book and that publishers can capitalize on the attention. Others balked at the suggestion.

And so the question was posed: is it better to sell 100 books with none pirated, or sell 1,000 books with 9,000 pirated?

Is the trade-off of piracy worth the potential sales or a false positive?

Let us know what you think in the comments.