[Xanthe]

With these type of discussions, it usually boils down to the authors among us saying that you have to pay for every single version of a book that you have and that anything else is "stealing", and people with massive amounts of books who have paid thousands and thousands for them over the years feeling that obtaining an e-copy of a book they own via the Darknet is perfectly okay.

There's never going to be any reconciliation between the two points of view because one side is discussing intellectual property while the other is discussing physical property.

I have no problem with people who are still buying books obtaining digital copies of them from the Darknet. The people I do have problems with are those who never buy books (or movies or music) at all and obtain everything via the Darknet. Those folks are just cutting their own throats, IMO, because if we don't support the artists, there eventually isn't going to be anything to download.

If more publishers followed the pricing strategy of say Baen, I'm sure more people would be willing to pay for their digital book copies. I'll easily pay $6.00 for an ebook; I won't pay $19.95.