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Man, I came late to this thread and, in all honesty, I am not going to go through the entire thread right now.
The plain fact is piracy is wrong. Not a novel statement, I know.
Some people can justify the piracy of music, because most musicians do not gain (much) money through the sales of CDs (or albums for the neo-ludites). Musicians gain most value from their music through performance, at concerts (and t-shirt sales).
But Authors do not tour. And when they do it is usually for free as an advertisement for their books. There is a movement of Authors that use free downloads of their books as advertisements of their work as well, and I can grog their reasoning. But downloading a pirated book of a work that an author <i> has not</i> put out as an advertisement is just wrong.
But, I admit, the temptation is strong, when a book you desire is not available, under any circumstances, in a <i>legal</i> digital form.
I wish there was an format to send money directly to an author whose book you gained through underground channels. That would give them money outside of the publishing web directly, and reinforce the idea to them that there are digital readers who appreciate their work, and desire it in a digital format.
That might make them renegotiate their publishing contracts, or just tell the paper publishers to "have sex with themselves" and just publish on their own books digitally and eliminate the middleman.
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