Well - the sad truth is, that copyright, patents, etc all stem from a pre-internet world. Selling one product (e.g. a book) is not the same as selling content (e.g. an ebook). Trying to uphold the same business models (like the music industrie failed to do for some time) is prone to fail (like it does). The music industry is slowly (oh so slowly) learning (see DRMfree music), the book industry will do so as well. Perhaps it will take longer for them - music had to adopt to quite a number of changes in the past (paper -> vinyl -> lp -> tape -> cd -> mp3), books only did once (handwritten -> printed). It didn't work for years - it worked for centuries.. It never was an innovation-rich industry (hey, some of them never ever managed to achieve an integrated workflow... still using print-outs and retyping text in each stage).
Long speech, no sense at all: We need new business models. I don't know whether some kind of "culture flatrate" would be practical, or some "pay per view", or whatever else - but a new model must (and will) evolve.
And those models will exist until a true "wireless world" is achieved (internet wherever you are - free of charge - will change business models. (Or perhaps will exist as soon as a wireless world exists). Point of fact: True "pay per view" would be possible, as would be "server based content". This would give some interesting possibilities - those possibilities are so interesting, that I really do not understand, why the content industry isn't forcing the telecom industry into new standards...)
(Please remember that "pay per view" does not necessarily mean that you pay x $ per view, but perhaps "x$ for the first ten views, x/2$ for the next 20, etc till 0$ after you have paid y$ in total.)
--edit:
Of course, other models are feasible as well - like selling service, additional products (shirts, cups, whatever), etc
I don't know how "book service" could look like (selling autographed books?
) - but then again I am not a publisher, so it's not my part to develop their business model (and if I had one, I would probably try to start it on my own ...)
And in response to the thread-question: Less common then music piracy, more common then common piracy. Less common then software piracy (and believe me - software industry is earning much money).
Perhaps focusing on service (high quality, easy to use, fast download speed, easy to search, abo-services, etc) would be the way to go. Perhaps with some brick-and-mortar stores selling eBooks and coffee? I'd love them (make that hot chocolate instead of coffee...).