In terms of incentive to learn, we're talking about maybe $10 for a book. This is a relatively small amount of money for something which will likely keep the p

In terms of incentive to learn, we're talking about maybe $10 for a book. This is a relatively small amount of money for something which will likely keep the person entertained for several hours over a week or two. In addition most readers are educated, employed and earn above average which puts them in the class of people where time (to learn these things) is proportionally more important to them than money. You talk about giving people enough incentive but I really don't see that many people being strongly incentivised to learn by that sort of saving. You're also making the assumption that book X has no substitute and that they must read this but this is rarely the case (and in those situations the item will actually almost always have a higher value to the individual increasing the price they're willing to pay). If I look at the Spy Who Loved Me and I find that it's £5.25 on Amazon and I think that's not a good price, I could easily see that I could get Casino Royale for £4.35. If I think that's too expensive it would take me about 30 seconds to see that I could get The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo for £2.68 or the Lost Symbol for £2.76. Piracy is not just not the only alternative and indeed I'd suggest that in the vast majority of cases it's not the main alternative. (If you think that £2.68 is too much for a novel then might I ask what the reasonable price is at which you'd buy rather than pirate? My guess would be that it's likely to be in the area where the publisher essentially doesn't see you as a potential customer anyway (at least not a profitable one) and broadly doesn't really care what you do). Beyond this you assume that initial attempts at piracy will be positive where research shows that this isn't the case. If someone attempts to find a torrent and spends half an hour battering their head against password protected files, dead links and so on, they're just as easy to write the whole thing off. At that point buying behaviour is actually reenforced as they now longer see downloading as a viable option. As for habits the use of the work "exhaustive" to relate to an Amazon search which might take 30 seconds is misleading. I agree that you're not going to search 50 sites to find the best price but a search on Amazon to get a ballpark figure isn't onerous at all. Where someone has made some sort of investment in a new behaviour pattern it might be true that it was more of a one way trip but in this case the barrier to returning to legitimate purchasing is so low as to not be there. EDIT: I would accept that there are some instances where book piracy will be (and is) rife. Generally these would be where the price is higher (computer or academic books for example) increasing the incentive, and where the potential customer / pirate is more familiar with the technology and therefore the barriers to moving into piracy are lower but for mass market books I don't see it being an issue in the way you describe.