The late 90s were crazy science-fictional if you were inside the superheated steam bubble of the dot-com 1.0 industry.

Back in the pre-internet age there were pirate publishers, especially in the third world, who would print physical copies of books, sell them, and never inform the author/their agent/their publisher just trousering the money. I think we can agree that this was piracy?

I don't like Amazon (wearing my author hat, not my customer hat).

We are, after all, homo economicus.

I was an early adopter: have been on the internet continuously since late 1989, barring a six-month loss of access in the early 90s.

The problem with ebook filesharing is simply one of scale. But I think the "piracy" problem is massively over-rated.

Today, we see some "file sharing" sites that rely on fans uploading cracked copies of ebooks, and which then make money off those books by charging for downloads (via cash subscriptions or advertising). Again: I take a dim view of this. They're making money off the back of my work without paying me.