It’s not exactly news that the Internet is a perfect tool for violating copyright. In book publishing, the big concern has been best sellers that can be scanned and uploaded, with the idea that there is a worldwide audience for the latest Harry Potter installment or Oprah recommendation. While most university press books don’t have quite that commercial appeal, they are finding that they can still be the targets of pirates.

Press officials don’t want to provide too many details about what they’ve found as they don’t want to encourage people to download free copies of monographs, as they can do now in some cases. But those involved with anti-piracy efforts say that university presses are now targets of a number of sites. In a particularly disturbing trend, some presses are reporting that pre-publication digital editions are ending up on these piracy Web sites, raising concerns about the need to better track who has access to such versions.