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Eric managed to hit a whole lotta nails on the head with this one. I particularly liked his point about used and borrowed books essentially amounting to pir--uh, excuse me, theft, in the present system. But since, clearly, they are not considered theft by the industry, the system must be a bit more complicated at second glance, not as simple as publishers might suggest.
Electronic publishing is in exactly that conundrum. A lot of matters have to be considered to solve the commercial needs of e-publishing, many more than "He downloaded my book and didn't pay me first!" And I agree, the publishing industry could solve them, if they actually wanted to make a little effort... the kind of effort Steve Jobs made to create iTunes, and to show the music industry how e-music could be profitable.
The print industry didn't have all the details worked out in a week, or a month, or a year. It will take time for the e-book industry to work things out. We just have to keep them from doing too many stupid things until then.
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