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My point is, Steve, I think most people here (I would even go so far as to say "the vast majority") do think that ebooks have intrinsic value. Yes, there are those who feel that if they already own the content legitimately in a paper form, they have few if any reservations about acquiring a scanned copy from elsewhere. But these are people who still feel it is important to compensate the author. After all, they bought the book in the first place. And it's a problem of the transition from paper to digital, not a permanent problem.
The opinion I don't care for much is the one that says "piracy is rampant, you can't stop it, nor should you-- content should just be free now that it costs nearly nothing to make copies." But I think that's a very minority opinion, here and elsewhere. Most people are mature enough understand that even if copies are nearly free to make, original content creation (and editing, formatting, marketing, etc.) is not, and needs to be compensated. Some of us worry about how this is going to happen, so we toss around ideas like embedded advertising, social DRM, etc. But I think taking a few of the worst extremist comments in this forum and extrapolating a widespread disrespect for authorship is probably borrowing anxiety unnecessarily. I just hate to see you stressing out over what I think is a very minority opinion.
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