[prisoner655321]

> if we don't buy their books, they won't be able to produce the next one for people to pirate.

This is a false dichotomy. Book piracy and traditional book publishing co-exist. If book publishing wants to better compete with piracy, they can innovate like other industries have. As well, your implied prediction —- that if we don’t “stop all the downloading” [0] then books will disappear —- is decidedly ahistorical. Books have existed since long before publishing houses existed, and indeed it’s easier than ever to publish a book and get money for it.

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1eA3XCvrK90

[beej71]

Put another way, there's no difference in profit between:

10,000 book sales and zero pirated copies.

10,000 book sales and 10 million pirated copies.

The only thing left to argue about is what percentage of those pirated copies would have turned into book sales if the free versions had not been available.