[kjk]

http://www.davidflanagan.com/2011/04...ipt-the-1.html

I'm well-aware of Tim O'Reilly's public statements about piracy. And I agree with some of them. Obscurity is a worse problem than piracy, for example. And I know that some authors have been successful at selling books even while making them free (and legal) for download. I know that some genre fiction authors have been successful by self-publishing ebooks for 99¢. (I don't know that world well enough to link to any of those authors, though.) For most of these authors, however, "success" means "I'm making more money selling books for 99¢ than I did when I sold them for $3.99".

I know that electronic piracy cannot be defeated. And I don't think we should (or can) lock everything down with draconian DRM. But I also think that a laissez-faire attitude toward piracy ("well, it is better than obscurity" or "its going to be pirated anyway, so you might as well just make it free") is the wrong answer.

Tough position to be in.