The majority of Dutch E-books are pirated, according to a report from research company GfK. On average is less than 10% of the E-books paid for, the rest has been obtained by downloads from e.g. torrent sites.
Dutch E-book owners have 117 E-books on their device of which 11 are paid for. The rest of the books are free or have been downloaded from websites that illegally distribute copyrighted books.
In the Netherlands, the E-books only account for 4.5% of the market. However authors and publishers have announced to start promoting 'legal reading' using social media. In the Netherlands downloading pirated E-books from torrent sites and usenet is illegal, uploading them isn't.
E-books can now also legally obtained for free by lending from libraries, several major Dutch publishers have made their collection available this way. Dutch E-book owners can read any of the 5000 books for free till April this year, after that it will cost them € 20 ($27) to lend 18 E-books of three years and older. The E-books contain a DRM system which renders them unreadable after the lending period.
