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You may hate or love the pirates, the fact is that music, movies and book publishers are in competition with the pirates. It's obvious that this is not a fair competition, but let's face it, there is no other competition. If you are a sole provider of the content, you can only be in competition with your self. And this a main problem in my opinion -- why would you want to sell your materials in digital content, if you don't have to? JKR has decided not to publish her works digital, because there is no reason for her to do so (for now). So, in this sense, pirates maybe doing a general public a favour in a long turn. They are fixing a problem, albeit in the illegal way.
Where do I see the solution? Like so many others have pointed out here, the PRICE and SERVICE. When content will be so cheap and so easy available, 99% of the people will not even bother to look for the free/pirated content.
The price part is all simple economics: you can sell in small volumes with high prices, or you sell cheap in high volumes, the outcome is the same, or even better for the latter. It's this point that publishers have to realize: sell a lot and cheap! Newspapers have already realized this, and are aware that they will even have to provide content for free, and make a profit in side services.
So, publishers, get of your butts, and start to compete!
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