Ok, first of all we should look at the magnitude of the problem. In several intreviews with publisher and authors we have been abel to read that they don't belive that ebooks will replace pbooks but be a compliment to them. At least not in a long time. And then we have piracy of books that only can be applied to ebooks (Ok, I have acctually bought a pirated pbook in vietnam but it missed the last chapters
) so let say that 30 % of all ebooks is pirated (a pretty high number I would say, and that is the lost profit of ebooks not the acctually ammount of dll ebooks) and 30 % of all books sold is ebooks (even higher, much higher!) then it would only be 10% of all books that would be pirated, this is not very much, not as much as it would be problem. And after all the most books pirated would be best sellers anyway so the author would not be poor.
OK with that said, lets look at other parameters that would make piracy of ebook a minor problem.
First we have language, most people would like to read in thier mother tounge. This require unlike music that you don't translate, much more work for the uploader, or rahter it require several copiers of the same book. Right now is it pretty damn hard to find any pirated books in swedish and I don't think it will be much easier in the future. (well in sweden you can lend books online from libraries in mobibook and pdf formats so it is still a pretty good situatuon
)
Second, the time, equipment and effort of coping a pbook compare to music or movies. This is right now a major obstical for piracy, it will be easier when it is just to remove the DRM.
Third, the value of having a physical book in a bookshelf. Unlike a movie or music you can't get you book in to a physical media (well you can print it but honestly it is not the same) that is as good as the copies from the store. Music has NO extra value when you buy it from the store compared to download it, ok you will get a bit better quality but most people doesn't notice that anyway. Movies has a little more, if you dll a .avi file a bought dvd is pretty much better but with broadband youc an dll a full dvd and burn it. But a blue-ray disc is not really easy to download with todays internetconnections, 50 gb is to much so there you get a extra value from a store bought movie, HD quality
Fourth the book industry is allready ahead of the music and movie industry in ways of buying books online, wispernet and regular online ebook stores. As soon as a standard format will be decided upon (epub perhaps) it will be easy to buy ebooks. And it will be easy from the begining (I count the begining in ebooks as when ereaders start to sell, which is now) to buy legaly ebooks, compare to the music industry that just barley has started to catch up. And dll from p2p and other darknet sources is allways a bit of a hassle to the common user. A legal alternative that is easy to use will quickly be populare and widespread, (like iTunes).
Fifth, some authors might want a wide audinece to spread their message, it seems to me that that is more common among writers than among music artist or movie makers. And as it has been mention, piracy can sometimes boost sales because it will easy find a auidience.
Like I downloaded Codex Seraphinianus just because it looked cool. (It is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Seraphinianus) I would never had bought it because it cost like 500 $ but I shoved it to my dad and he really loved it. And he has now bought it. He would probobly never has found it in a bookstore because it is so rare and expensive. And now I am posting a link to it here so that perhaps someone of you will buy it and in that way increese sale. And it would never had happend if I didn't downloaded it.
I am not sure that piracy allways boost sales (pretty sure it don't
but sometimes it is not that bad...
That was all I had on thesubject for now
Over and out