E-books gaining steam in China (3)

Tong said, “After 12 years, we’ve been stepping up our fight with piracy. We are cooperating with hundreds of publishers and writers to fight piracy. We use a combination of technology and legal means.”

Nearly all major publishing houses in China have dabbed into e-publishing. The Publishing House of Traditional Chinese medicine is one of them. Their first project is to digitize 200 of their books.

Wang Guochen, director of Publishing Housing of TCM, said, "It’s a blow to traditional publishing. Technology is changing people’s reading habits. In our circumstance, our books on popular science have seen the effects. But we’re still not sure what impact it will have in later years.

But it seems some publishers are taking a wait and see approach before expanding their e-book businesses, until technology and laws can better protect the infant industry.

Reporter: “China has a burgeoning e-book market. Young people are the early adopters. And publishers are branching into this field. It’s still too early to predict whether e-books will overtake, or even eventually replace paperbooks someday. There’s one thing for sure, the e-book market can only be mature if the digital copyright can be adequately protected.”

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