With the advent of the internet, the marginal cost of producing and distributing such content has dropped by orders of magnitude since the 1990's. One would exp

With the advent of the internet, the marginal cost of producing and distributing such content has dropped by orders of magnitude since the 1990's. One would expect in a competitive, healthy economic system, some of this productivity gain would fall to customers in lower prices. This has not happened. While piracy is not the ultimate answer, it may be necessary to force the hand of the businesses and government to restructure. I don't know how/how much publishers should be compensated, but they will not give up their current rent-seeking status unless it is ripped from their cold dead hands. Information production/distribution has become a commodity, and should be priced only to support the value add of peer-review, etc. Meanwhile should authors be compensated? Yes, As an observation from the corner of science that i inhabit: authorship of 'high quality scientific books' is a 'secondary profession' with most authors having primary commitments to academic positions--which are very much enriched by authorship. I believe authors will continue to be compensated both directly and indirectly, as they are providing most of the value in the product.