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Originally Posted by HansTWN
You are comparing loaning out a book sequentially to several individuals to putting a book on the internet.
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Yes, because both actions result in the authors not getting paid for the content they've created. Is there a moral difference between those actions, rather than a legal or technological difference?
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But what has been suggested is that you don't even have to buy the book when it is in ebook form. You can just download it and the author would be a barbarian to demand money for it.
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I don't believe that's been suggested.
It has been suggested that authors cannot expect to be paid by every person who reads their work, and that persuading people to pay may be more complex than chosing a DRM-laden publisher. But nobody's said "authors should produce everything for free because digital copies cost nothing to make." (There has been a suggestion that, given the cost of digital copies, publishers need to take a good hard look at their pricing structures, because when goods of any sort are perceived as overpriced, the public finds ways around those prices, whether that's "theft" or just buying from the competition. And that if publishers won't reconsider their pricing, authors are going to suffer until it becomes obvious to them that their current methods aren't working.)
It's also been pointed out that, just because a free version is available, doesn't mean people won't pay.
I'm aware of the darknet. I know how to torrent. I know that most or all of Baen's books are out there, and I know how to fetch them. Still, I buy books from Baen; I don't torrent them. This is partially because I approve of Baen's business model and want them to succeed, and partially because the versions on the torrents are usually letter-sized PDFs, which are definitely not my preferred format.
I pay for the convenience of formats of my choice, and a download site that's free of viruses. And at Baen's prices, I'm happy to pay for those conveniences--even for content I could easily get for free.