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Publishers...I have met the enemy and they are us
The biggest threat to publishers is not piracy, but the publishers themselves.
Personally, I would not consider piracy. Instead, if I can't find what I want at a reasonable price, I wait until I can get it used at a better price. As for ebooks, if I can't have it in a format and price that I consider reasonable, I buy the used printed book, which means a complete loss of revenue for publishers.
But what readers want is simple: reasonable prices, non-DRM, open formats (i.e., let me get the books I want at a fair price and let me read them on the device of my choosing, let me legally convert to the format I want).
If publishers offered that, piracy would be far less likely to be a threat to the publishing industry IMO.
I can think of dozens of books I would buy immediately if I could get them DRM-free in PDF or HTML...but the publishers will never get the money I have to offer because of their position.
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