I have respect for authors who don't want to see their work end up on pirate bay, etc....
But often I see that as being the main scapegoat for why an author has a hard time earning a living from their work. Even before e-books, I rarely bought books at full price. Too expensive for me. I always borrowed from the library, or bought at yard sales, and a brand new book was a luxury. Much like I was a long time radio fan of many many bands, but only bought a fraction of the albums.
These days hundreds of new books are published every week. So many books, so many high prices and simply not enough time/money to consume it all. Most of the time, THAT is the real reason that people aren't lining up in droves to buy buy buy... not piracy. Piracy is an easy scapegoat, but only represents a small fraction of "non buyers"). There are thousands of books/songs/movies, people will never buy even if they don't pirate them. They simply go without.
I don't think I could ever choose authoring for a living. For me it's too much of a gamble. I couldn't write something and then assume that it will make money just because I wrote it. I'd choose a living similar to a friend of mine, writing in real time as a columnist or something. I've never pursued that as a profession, but when I die, people can have my short stories released into the public domain
