
An average of nearly 10,000 copies of every book published is downloaded from filesharing sites, according to a new study by Attributor. The study examined a sample of 913 popular titles and 25 filesharing sites. Fiction titles were actually among the least affected titles, with an average of around 6,000 copies downloaded per title; business and investing titles were the category most likely to be illegally downloaded, with over 13,000 per title.
The top two filesharing sites, rapidshare.com and 4shared.com, each accounted for around a third of downloaded titles, with the #3 site, esnips.com, accounting for a much lower 7.4% share of book downloads.
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