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I don't think you're going to be able to just tell young people "Downloading is stealing and it's wrong and therefore you shouldn't do it." Did that stop you from doing something you wanted to do at that age? Of course not.
You have to cast it in terms that they will understand: what's in it for me if I stop downloading free stuff and start paying for my content?
Tell them that if they don't pay for their books, then authors will not be able to afford to write them, publishers will not be able to afford to publish them, and there won't be anything new to read.
Also, you can download off the darknet, but in my (admittedly limited) experience with darknet ebooks, they usually are OCRed, badly proofread (if at all), and badly formatted. If they want a good reading experience, pay for a real copy. Explain that you get what you pay for. They're formatted, they will work, they will look nice, it will be a good experience, download and enjoy, and that having that good experience is worth paying for it.
(This also assumes availability--in that case, the publishers and authors such as J.K. Rowling who will not allow their stuff to be digitized have to assign some blame to themselves. It also assumes that the items for sale are of good quality. I've purchased some e-books and found tons of proofing errors, which is always disappointing. And the pricing must be fair. Not necessarily cheap, but fair.)
Lastly, we have to teach our kids that everything isn't available for instant gratification. If you want to read a book, you have to pay the price and buy it, get it from the library, or go without. The darknet mentality is simply entitlement mentality and a lack of impulse control writ large. I want it, and therefore I must have it NOW NOW NOW. I see it all the time with many (not all, thankfully) young people--they don't understand that, for instance, one has to pay one's dues to move up in business. I have a fairly interesting job and the ones working the more boring entry-level positions want it--but they don't realize that I spent YEARS working crappy jobs for insane and horrible people who treated me like dirt to acquire the experience and skills to get my relatively cool job working for nice people. They want it, and don't understand why they can't have it now (and don't appreciate that they are at least working for nice people in the meantime).
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