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The advances in the era of information technology have led to the popularity of e books. E-books have many advantages over the traditional printed book, primarily centered on the cost and accessibility factor. However, it is unlikely that e-books would replace conventional books. This is due to a variety of factors.
The major disadvantage of e-books is the inconvenience to read off the monitor. Unless technology improves to the extend that pocket PC’s become freely available at very low costs, most readers of the e-books would, for the sake of reading when required have to take a print out of the downloaded e-book. This raises the costs of the e-book significantly compared to a printed book.
The second issue with ebooks is piracy. While photocopying a copyright book is a major headache in the print industry, the possibility of emailing the ebook to many users is the major threat to intellectual property rights. Such e-books could also be placed in public servers for anyone to view and download.