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Whether students would copy a non-DRM'd textbook that costs $140 is a no-brainer: almost all of them would if it meant that they didn't have to spend the money. You can see that from the responses to this thread alone. (And of course this is even more the case when you keep in mind that students may have to buy $1,000 worth of textbooks in a semester.
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I'm a student and I'm telling you that I would pay $140 for a non-DRM'd textbook if it were offered and if it were formatted legibly. In that case, it would be a choice between a large physical book which I'd need to find shelf space for and a more convenient electronic version of the same thing, for about the same price. If there were no DRM, I'd also be able to make a backup or two on a different device, so I'd have no fears about losing my book when a hard drive failed or a device got lost/destroyed. In short, it would have most of the benefits of a physical book plus a few extras.
But why, I hear you ask, would I pay for the book if it had been pirated and was available for free? It's a simple question of ethics. If someone has made their work available in a non-DRMed format, that represents a conscious decision on their part. They realize that anyone could easily copy and redistribute the work, and they're taking the chance that people will choose to do the right thing and pay for it. I feel a sense of responsibility in response to the implicit trust placed in me, which is why I have never (and would never) pirated or redistributed a non-DRMed work of any kind. In my opinion, companies that treat me as a potential criminal by locking down their media deserve little respect or consideration.
That's only my personal reasoning about the issue. Others may have their own reasons for choosing not to pirate non-DRMed files.
In any case, I wish that the textbook companies would try the experiment themselves before bleating on about how they need to lock the files.