[Jaime_Astorga]

But for now, writing a book takes many hundreds of hours. Authors must be compensated for that time.

It is not self-evident that they "must" be compensated for this time. There are arguments that money can be an incentive for authors to write, or that money is a tool that allows them to dedicate more time and effort to writing, but I think those benefits are outweighted by the availibity, to every human being with an internet connection, of all past and current works regardless of their ability to pay for them. At any rate, if less authors wrote for monetary incentives alone or in grand part, I think it would hopefully help to curtail Sturgeon's Law.

Copyright is a way of reflecting that notion--the author can control under what terms each copy of that story can be sold and distributed. (At least until the purchaser resells it.)

Take away that protection, e.g. "I'll just make unauthorized free copies and let the author figure out an alternative business model" is, to me, a cop-out. I believe it is stealing, whether or not one wants to admit it.

I do call it stealing. Not all stealing is bad, you know.

But I agree, you're spot on about the thievery of textbook publishers. The push for "open source textbooks" will hopefully curtail that.

Aye, I fully support open source textbooks (as long as there are "mainstream" versions of the textbooks maintained by professors; kind of like there are linux distros today). Part of the appeal of eBook readers for me is that I hope as they become more prevalent, non-commercial textbooks (which are only really viable as electronic content) will become the norm. Certain undergraduate courses, like Calculus, have hardly changed in hundreds of years; all we need is some professors willing to write and give away ONE good textbook and, as long as it catches, we are set for life.

There are plenty of other business models. But that's not at all the same thing as "I support piracy in general." The statement I quoted says flat out that the writer supports taking copies of copyrighted works with no compensation to the copyright holder whether the copyright holder approves or not. Most of those "other business models" require some entity other than the poster to change something. That may well be good business (in the sense that the copyright holder makes more money), but it's not something any of the rest of us have a "right" to force on them.

Similarly, the ethical way to support alternate business models is to purchase from those who engage in them, and to refuse to do business with those who do not -- while being very vocal about it. In the case of eBooks, that latter means telling each publisher "You just lost another sale to me because..." -- over and over and over again, if necessary -- but it does not mean making unauthorized copies of someone's work!

I find the idea of needing an author's permission or approval to distribute their work ridiculous. Authors find themselves in the middle of libraries all the time, to be read by anyone ready to pony up an address and a quick trip, whether they want to be or not.

I support an author's right to be the only one to profit from a work; pirates who make copies in order to resell them for profit are the scum of the earth, providing neither freeness nor compensation for the author (the benefits of piracy and legal sales, respectively) and instead merely doing a job. And I support an author's right to be recognized as such; it is with good reason that plagiarism is considered the ultimate sin of academia. But when the author tries to prevent others from sharing the words that they wrote, I feel they have crossed the line. The work should now belong to the entire world, able to be read at leisure by people everywhere regardless of whether they have the disposable income to pay for it or not. And it is a foolish endeavor, at any rate, since the technological, social, and political realities are such that preventing filesharing from being possible is doomed to failure.

But please note: the ever-extending copyright term mess we have today is also wrong; I support returning copyright duration to a much shorter and more justifiable term.

This I completely agree with. Death of the author plus 70 years?! WTF!

Actually, this just isn't correct. The part of the file-sharing that brings pressure to bear on publishers and their business models is exactly and only the degree to which they lose sales (whatever those lost sales may be -- there's plenty of argument about that question, and I don't intend to take it on here). "[Pressuring publishers] to reform their business models and distribution schemes, and [pressuring] creators [...] to find publishers who can handle the new realities" would happen just as well in economic terms if all the file-sharers simply refused to purchase or consume any content not available via their preferred business model. That's engaging in a boycott. It's well known and understood, and clearly an ethical approach to the issue.

But with a boycott, one does not obtain the product one is refusing to buy. Many people will cave in to pressure and refuse to boycott, despite disagreeing with prices or other practices, because in the end having the work in question is too powerful a draw for them. While engaging in piracy, it is easier to refuse to buy products and thus one can have more of an economical impact.

If your goal is impact on the business world (as in taosaur's second paragraph above), it's important both to see how the business world sees your actions and also to consider the total effect of those actions on their beliefs.

"We're boycotting your products because [fill in the reason]" is a statement the business guys understand and can evaluate. Get a bunch of folks together and you'll have some impact (although the size of that impact is unlikely to exceed your impact on sales numbers).

"We're boycotting your products because [fill in the reason]" combined with "oh yeah, we're also downloading them without authorization or compensation" gets interpreted as "We're not willing to pay for the product at any price, and we're using our 'boycott'-like rhetoric as cover for our file-sharing." And that understanding on the part of the business folks robs the rhetoric of nearly all its potential impact.

Please note: It doesn't matter whether that interpretation matches your intent or not! That's how it'll come across to folks outside the file-sharing community.

If it does... very well, then. Like I said, part of why I like piracy is that readers get to win in either case. If they won't listen to us because of our actions, that is fine; we will merely continue pirating and get the product for free. It's their move to play and draw people TOWARDS them with alternative services. There is little they can do to draw us AWAY from piracy.