[Tom A.]

I come late to the ebook discussion.
I do love physical books, but these days I prefer to buy ebooks. The main reason is space. I already had too many books when I still lived in Belgium, and now living in Hong Kong space has become precarious. In the end we now have a 4 meter long bookcase in the living room, and the books need to fit. I did buy a few physical books the last two years (when no e-alternative existed), and i could make them fit by giving away a few older books.
Plus, ebooks are great for travelling light. I have meanwhile around 300 books on my kindle (50% read, unfortunately my compulsive acquiring hasn't slowed), which are always available and take zero space. Lovely.
I agree that piracy may be a problem and it is unethical, but I don't know how much real impact it has. You only really lose money if the person would have bought the book if he were not able to find it for free. I think that the kind of reader who enjoys small press books from Chomu, Tartarus, Ash Tree etc would simply buy the ebook when it is available, the prices are reasonable anyway.
I will admit to having a handful of illegal ebooks: a few uncollected JD Salinger tales (near impossible to find nowadays in the original magazines) and a few more leaked unpublished ones by him. To be frank, these tales don t have the magic of his well known tales, but as a former fan of the writer I wanted to read these stories. I also have a leaked early movie script of At the mountains of madness by Del Toro. But that's it. Life is easy and reasonably priced when buying the interesting ebooks.