I live 5 minutes away from a library with a great selection, that's part of a huge interlibrary loan system. I don't think I've ever had trouble getting a book I wanted in less than a week or so, even if it was a recent new release bestseller.

So, I can get books for "free" whenever I'd like (Yes, I know the library buys the book, and my taxes pay the library, but you see what I mean).


So if I'm looking for a pdf to browse during some downtime at work, it's hard for me to feel guilty about torrenting a copy. I mean, either way I'm not going to pay for it.

And that last part isn't even true- I still buy books. Wheel of Time, Brandon Sanderson, 90% of all of Terry Pratchett's books, random things that look interesting in a bookstore...


So, I realize that a lot of this is rationalization, but the whole thing with libraries makes it hard to feel guilty. Either way I'm getting it for "free," so why not use the most convienent one?

Best way to fight this, I think, is to have easily accessible e-versions of as many books as possible, for very low prices. If a half million people pay 5 bucks for an ebook instead of the current physical copy prices, that's still much better than them paying nothing. Pretty much the same philosophy iTunes used, and it seems to be going well.