> Piracy is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it means you receive no compensation for the benefit readers get from the work you put in. On the other hand, pirated books act as implicit marketing, expanding awareness of you and your book(s). They can also reach buyers who want to see the full product before making a purchasing decision or who wouldn't become aware of your book through conventional marketing efforts.

The point I've emphasized above really matters a lot for people who do read many books. Despite select chapter previews that some publishers provide, there are people who really want to do their own evaluation of something before committing to buying it.

> My feeling is that most people who choose pirated books are unlikely to pay for them, even if that's the only way to get them. As such, I'm inclined to think the marketing effect of illegal copies exceeds the lost revenue. I have no data to back me up. Maybe it's just a rationalization to help me live with the knowledge that no matter what you do, there's no way you can prevent bootleg copies of your books from showing up on the Net.

Again, the emphasized sentence above has been known for a very long time in the areas of music, movies, TV shows, books - any content, actually. In my observation, people who pirate books also tend get into a habit of hoarding rather than reading (low disk/storage and bandwidth costs). Leaving aside the people who are in countries with poorer currencies and cannot really imagine buying a lot of the English language technical content produced, I doubt if the real loss in revenue is even substantial.

Books also, depending on the subject, require investments of time, attention, memory and repeated reference, unlike movies, TV shows and music that most of the time require a "one time investment". So I would not consider books to be in the same category as others when it comes to piracy.

I'm not at all happy with O'Reilly's decision, and did write to support at oreilly saying that this makes it difficult (finding DRM free content on amazon or elsewhere in multiple formats) and that I wouldn't be buying O'Reilly products again. I received a standard reply thanking me for the feedback and pointing me to the blog post. My guess is that the direct customer relationship and brand recognition through its website is going to be lost along with this decision.

I don't know if O'Reilly will change the decision, but people who do value the freedom of DRM free content in different formats must voice their opinions by writing to O'Reilly support.