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Alan, there's some doubt as to how much unauthorized distribution of commercially published ebooks is really going on. Most of what's being tossed about the darknet are scans of paper books, which people get because there are no commercial ebooks available for those titles. There is also some sharing of cracked DRM books, which some people get because they want to protect their investment after purchasing a DRM book, and some people get because they don't want to deal with a DRM book at all. But if non-DRM books in a common, feature-rich format (like ePub) were available for a wide range of titles at a reasonable price, I really do believe that the vast majority of customers would simply pay for them and download them from a legitimate site. It would be much, much easier than rummaging around on the darknet, not to mention safer. There are exceptions of course -- some people seem to feel no need to pay for anything, or don't think they should have to pay for niceties like editorial support or typesetting, and sure some people will let a friend or family member read a book they've bought, but I think the actual losses of sales through any of these means would be very small compared to the increase in revenue. Does it matter how many copies could theoretically be illegally distributed of an electronic title if sales go up overall? If I were managing a publishing operation, I'd be prepared to stake a chunk of my business on this premise.
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