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You can find all manner of things out there. I've seen a download that offers 13,000 SF/fantasy titles.
The problem you run into is format and quality. An awful lot of these offerings are scans from hardcopy editions, offered as plain text or PDF. They generally aren't proofread to catch OCR errors, and some are in very poor shape.
Even if the text is in decent shape, you still face the issue of getting to book into a form viewable on your reader device. PDF conversions are problematic. In my experience, PDFs created as simple single column files with in-line graphics convert fairly well. Beyond that, things degrade fast.
If you just want to read the book, and have low standards about the quality of the pirated edition that you are willing to read, and are willing to take the effort to convert, you can probably find what you want. If you actually have standards of quality, selection drops rapidly.
I've seen commentary from at least one MR poster who is quite familiar with the darknet, and could find pretty much anything. But he chooses to fire up his Kindle and buy a legitimate copy from Amazon. A few clicks and he's got the book and can start reading. He doesn't have to spend the time and effort finding an illicit copy, then converting to something he can read. The convenience adds value he's happy to pay for.
Ultimately, piracy is an annoyance, not a disaster. The larder market will pay for value like it always has. The trick is to provide value, price appropriately, and make it as easy as possible for the customer to give you money.
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Dennis
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