You don't have to pay them if you go steal them yourself. If you find it more convenient to pay another thief to do it for you then I don't think that's significantly less fair.
All those India/Malasya/Guatemala kids stealing a 200 USD PDE book from Pearson should go to jail... in America... Assange style
Could you please top posting unsubstantive comments to HN? You've been doing it a lot, unfortunately, and we're trying for a different sort of discussion here.