“Most people who download the book don’t end up buying it,
but they wouldn’t have bought it in any event, so I haven’t lost any
sales, I’ve just won an audience. A tiny minority of downloaders
treat the free ebook as a substitute for the printed book — those
are the lost sales. But a much larger minority treat the eBook as
an enticement to buy the printed book. They’re gained sales. As
long as gained sales outnumber lost sales, I’m ahead of the game.
After all, distributing nearly a million copies of my book has cost
me nothing.”

(Doctorow. C. (2008) Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future; San Francisco: Tachyon Publications from http://craphound.com/content/Cory_Doctorow_-_Content.pdf [accessed 28 July 2009]; p.71)

So one view is that it’s all about balance…

As Eric Flint (a popular SF author, you can read his entire comment at the link) put it “One of the things about the online debate over e-piracy that particularly galled me was the blithe assumption by some of my opponents that the human race is a pack of slavering would-be thieves held (barely) in check by the fear of prison sentences.”