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I think at least some of the differences of opinion in this thread can be ascribed to different people having different priorities. When dealing with the darknet we have three basic options: 1) attempt to minimize infringement and downloading at all costs. 2) accept that it exists and attempt to monetize as many downloads as possible. 3) work for some sort of balance between 1 and 2.
My personal opinion is that it's better to focus on converting downloads to sales and increasing monetization than on simply stopping illegal downloading. Among other things I think this is a more realizable goal in the relatively near term.
I think the truth of the darknet is that not all downloads are lost sales. Some are simply people trying to amass the biggest collection of "free" stuff they can. They download what' there and ignore what's not. While an annoyance they aren't really a lost sale because they weren't going to buy anything anyway. I think of them as "indiscriminate" downloaders.
The next category are what I think of as "discriminate" downloaders. They're looking for a specific book and some are lost sales and some aren't. If they're looking for something that's unavailable they are not a lost sale because there's nothing to sell. This is where people like J.K. Rowling seem to miss the boat. By not providing an electronic copy that's legally available they've guaranteed that no one who reads an electronic version of any Harry Potter book will have paid for it.
Finding the balance is going to be hard, and I don't think anyone has worked out all the kinks yet. I think Baen has come closer than most and while I think Tor could follow their model quite successfully I don't know that it would work for everyone. (It might, but there's no way to tell).
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