Writers will never stop writing. We couldn't stop even if we wanted to.

Cynthia Gentry, Belmont, California

90% of the stuff in the bookstore is crap that is not informative enough to own, so would be a library trip if it weren't available in plagiarised form on Wikipedia.

That's where book publishers should start, by cutting the volume of publication and replacing it with quality.

Have you tried reading a book online? The screen is awful compared to a book. But if you need a tidbit of info, or an introduction once in a lifetime, owning the book isn't necessary. that's probably not so of a truly great masterpiece.

Chris Borokowski, Houston, Texas

WOW! The comments on this article are superb! not one person agreeing with the view of the "Society of Authors" to say that the book industry is going to be finished off..

Thank you! Now will you all please go over to the "Society of Musicians" AKA The Big Four and RIAA, and the "Society of Movie Writers" AKA MPAA -They all seem to think that pirated music and movies are going to wipe them out too...

The fact is people like to read online, but as many have said they wish to have a paper copy in there hand and not read off a backlit screen. The same with music, and movies. If I like a band I will go and see them live where it probably costs me £30 a ticket (more than I would have ever spent listening to three of there albums)... same with movies I don't want to see a camera job filmed from the back of the cinema. I will go there, or watch it on DVD / Blu-ray

Its another industry that is trying to get some extra money by scaremongering governments into paying for them to exist.

Jez, Reading, Berks

What utter nonsense! The written word and audio/video are not even comparable in this sense. Who would read a 600 page novel from a computer screen? Absolutely no one; it would result in a head ache and sore eyes, not the relaxing experience that books are.

Philip, Osaka, Japan

Make it impossible to copy the pages of any writing on the internet. There are ways to do that. Some photography sites protect their content.

Another approach, put up select excerpts of a book or a poem by an author and then, if a person enjoys the work, they can pay to view it online or to purchase the book. Protect the content.

BTW, as David Burton said above about music, "The increased availability of free music (legal and illegal) has only increased the number of bands/musicians that i'm into, my love of music, and the amount i spend on records!" This has been shown true time and time again.

I am a semi-professional writer.

Bill Leikam, Palo Alto , California

@David Burton:
Good points well made.

the increased availability of free music (legal and illegal) has only increased the number of bands/musicians that i'm into, my love of music, and the amount i spend on records!

of course, i may be the exception, but regardless, the arguements against piracy mainly come from pubilshers and are about the control of the delivery of content to consumers. Certainly not the author/musicians involved..

here's to the freedom of information! :)

AndrewN, London, UK

Freedom of information in the truest sense.

Mark Thomass, Stoke-on-Trent, UK

Yes J K Rowling and Jamie Oliver have made lots of money. But, as usual, it will be the small people who are hit hardest.

Talk to self-employed editorial photographers or small photo libraries about the way the market has collapsed in the last ten years. To journalists who now earn less than fifteen years ago and have been forced to hand over full copyright in their work. Now the book market is about to implode.

Great to hear that some of the people above apparently don't need to earn a living and can write as 'amateurs' for the love of it. Writing, photography and journalism is a career, a 'proper job' for many people.

Yes there may be opportunities ahead but I bet you they will be mainly for the big companies. Just as big companies are the only ones that can realistically take any kind of legal action under the copyright laws.

Robert, Manchester, UK

Even if we pretend for a moment that all modern novelists will down tools tomorrow -- so what? There is already far more fiction available than any of us would be able to read in a dozen lifetimes. Most of it is forgotten and buried under an avalanche of new mediocrity. The current model treats books like loaves of bread which go stale when they've been out for too long. Stem the flow of modern angst and Da Vinci Code knock-offs, and maybe we will be able to rescue older books of genuine worth. The publishers won't like it because it will remove their monopoly, but who cares?

I can go to any CD shop and buy music that was a hit in 1972. When I can go to any bookshop and buy a book that was a best-seller in 1972, then there will be genuine freedom of choice. If modern novelists have to go on strike for that to happen then bring it on!

Jon Jermey, Blaxland NSW, Australia

Yep, just like it drove musicians to stop writing songs and filmmakers to stop creating movies for us to watch.

What a ridiculous idea.

Dave Bullock, Los Angeles, CA

Everyone who says we won't be reading e-books is betting against the Kindle and other e-reading products. These are being promoted by the biggest businesses on the planet-- internet, computing, publishing. Don't feel bad, there were plenty of people who said the horse and buggy would never be replaced by those new-fangled "horseless carriages".

James Anderson, Chicago, USA

As a not very widely published poet who never expects to make money directly from selling books of poetry (or selling poems to other pubs), I welcome the widest possible distribution of my work. Far from stopping writing, i am inspired to do more. The kind of "writers" who would give up over this we hardly need and have nothing to do with art or literature, IMHO. But hackery will no doubt survive & thrive in any model....

Gregory Luce, Washington, DC USA

The booksales of an unknown poet drop dramatically because of the book piracy... Pirate moms have been making huge profits by illegally copying cake recipes for centuries... And it's as easy to read your latest Potter in toilet from your laptop as it is from a book... Society of Fiction Authors, isn't it? Or Society of April Fools'?

JEP, Turku, Finland

“For a while it will be great for readers because they will pay less and less but in the long run it’s going to ruin the information. People will stop writing"

Ha. *Some* people may stop writing, but people as a whole will never stop writing, regardless of format. No worries. Things change. How many strill scrawl with a fountain pen?

Erik France, Detroit, USA

Oh please.....

The only books that make good digital books are technical guides, ones needed in the workplace or reference books like an encyclopedia.

Nobody in their right mind is going to bring a laptop to bed to read a book, likewise, no one in their right mind is going to download a pdf, a doc or a txt file of a novel, print it out and then read it. The hassle involved in carrying around a manuscript of that size just makes it impracticable.

It seems to me that some people may be jumping on the band wagon of the RIAA and their ilk by blaming illegal digital downloads for a slump in sales. The neglect to take into account the slump in quality of music available and the fact that sales over the internet do not appear in sales for the country the cd is going to.

As is, I would love to see the sales f figures for music in Hong Kong for the last 5 years.... they must be booming!

MJ, Dublin, Ireland

I think most true readers would balk at reading on a screen anyway. I've had to use e-books for university (a legit subscribed site, don't worry!) and I hated it. Even the librarians could only come up with two advantages to them - not fighting over paper copies, and the fact that you can (wait for this) highlight things on the page. Not that that's much good for reference in writing an essay. The most I'll do is use the Amazon 'search inside' function for more obscure books - which, at the end of the day, is really no different to browsing a few pages in-store to make sure you want to buy.

A book lover wants the whole package - the pages, the clean lines, the cracked spine, the woody smell are as much a part of the reading experience as the actual content. Give me a good paper copy, paid up in support of a writer I admire, than a free online version anyday.

Eleanor, Derbyshire,

I heard that British author Nora Johnson recently gave away online copies of her latest novel, The De Clerambault Code, and that actual sales of that book doubled overnight!

I agree with previous comments that people don't like reading books on a computer screen. They might read an excerpt, one or two chapters perhaps, but if they like it, they'll go out and buy the hard copy.

Martin Webster, Manchester, UK

Celebrity recipe books are produced to make a quick buck and, mostly, containb liitle that is new and vety little. if anything, invented by the ghosted author. I never understood why anyone buys the things in the first place.

Reference books such as encyclopaedias and dictionaries are obviously competing with legal internet alternatives.

Real books that you actually read through will always be read as printed ciopes by the vast majoirty of people.

So, what is all the fuss about?

Roger Tilbury, Worthing,

The publishers have to modernize and embrace ebooks. They have to sell them much cheaper than now and sell them without DRM. Personally I have for years bought lots and lots of ebooks, mainly DRM-free either from the author or from web-stores.

I don't know who the "Society of Authors" are, but assume that it is yet another organization trying to rip us off.

Jorgen, London,

Maybe it will stop authors who are just out for cash from writing. True writers do not write because they want to make money, but because they can't not write.

Anon, London,

British author Neil Gaiman recently gave away online copies of his novel, American Gods; actual sales of that book went up by around 400%.

People don't like reading books on a computer screen. They might read a section, a chapter or two, but if they like it, they'll go and buy a copy.

Chris Patton, newcastle, UK

It's okay writing for the love of it, but love doesn't pay the mortgage. I still think the hard copy will sell, though. As with music, there is an uptrend in sales of CD's again and even with vinyl as collectors like to have something tangible in their collection.

Reading from a screen is awkward and printing isn't cheap. Books will ultimately survive this tempoary blip when the wow factor subsides for the more traditional trip to a book shop.

Michael Bunting, Leeds, England

This is typical publisher/industry propaganda.

The internet allows for much wider and cheaper distribution, reduced manufacturing costs and should take power from industry conglomerates and vest more power with individual writers (if they take the opportunity). Oh, and reduce prices for consumers!

Why not do what the creators of South Park have done with their entire catalogue of cartoon episodes? i.e. made them available for free on their website but made fans watch a short commercial advertisement first. You could download an 'e-book' chapter by chapter with the requirement to watch a small advert first, or for those that didn't want to be pestered in this way, require a (reasonable) charge instead. The AUTHORS will make a lot more with such a system.

Also, the huge proliferation in website and online publishing has arguably created many many more authors in recent years. I do not see a decline in the written word!

Alexander (IP lawyer), London, UK

Since most fiction writers do it as a form of therapy, and the world is getting madder and madder, I suspect the amount of fiction will actually increase ...

clive warner, Monterrey , Mexico

Yes, there have been pirate copies of JK Rowling's books. It's hardly bankrupted her, has it? The truth that these organisations fail to see is that piracy may encourage legitimate use.
If someone listens to a band they don't know (whether pirate or on the radio) and like it, then they're more likely to want to buy more. The same is true of books.
Microsoft acknowledges that the number of windows users is important Even if users have pirate versions, as they're more likely to convert pirates to legitimate licences than linux users.
Additionally, most people prefer to have legitimate versions (being predominantly, though perhaps not scrupulously honest), and many with pirate versions don't have the spare money to spend at all. Stopping piracy produces little if any increase in revenue.
As the cost of reproduction tends to zero, piracy increases. However, the money taken out of the available recreational funds that people have also tends to zero, to copyright holders may lose less

David Burton, London,

I suggest more advertising in books. It's radical but it's the model the music industry is using to some success. By including references to a popular lager in a thriller it is merely adding realism. To me writing is the last of the 'socialist arts' that must succumb to the pressures of the market place or fade & wither.

kevin, Lincoln, UK

How does 'the government' differ as a source of income from 'the public'? Only in that in the one case people who want something pay for it and in the other people who don't want it have to pay for it anyway. Isn't Socialism wonderful?

MDHinton, Sieradz, Poland

I cannot agree with the statement that "people will stop writing" just because it is free. Just look at the open source software movement. The web is awash with people publishing highly professional free software applications. Or indeed look at wikipedia, which, when it comes to information that does not have polical baggage, such as technical information, is a free and reasonably reliable source of knowledge. The internet overlaps with, but does not replace, the book: it adds new dimension which authors may not have considered.

Julian, Derby,

Google attempts to provide open access to journals and books denied to the general public and should be congratulated for that. The Open Access movement should be praised not criticized. Remember the idea that computers would stop book buying/reading?

jane, Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire

The availability of illicit digital versions of books is surely proof that there is a market for ebooks and digital readers etc. Perhaps the Society of Authors should be working closely with their publishers to ensure that their title is produced in all digital formats (including audio) and technology companies to ensure that their work is legally available for sale in all formats, sooner rather than later, as once people have become used to downloading illegal or free content it will be diffcult to change their habits.

P McCullough, London,

Like the music industry, the publishing industry must innovate or whither on the vine. That will not stop people creating - books, music, art of any kind will continue. It just means it may not be in the form we currently recognise.

HC, London,

Empirical evidence suggests that the Society of Authors is wrong. Baen, a US commercial science fiction imprint, and a number of it's authors, make legally available over 150 full books in free editions at it's website. Sales of paper copies of books by these authors have gone up. Not only sales of other books by the author, but also sales of the books made freely available on the net.

Before anyone listens to the "Society of Authors", and their special pleading to have a legal right to pick your pocket, look at the facts!

Go to the Baen website - www.baen.com - look at the free library - http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm - read the editorials by Eric Flint (a commercial author), on the observed facts!

Cynosarges, London, UK

Unless the book industry pulls its finger out and stops using "the old pals act"; ghostwriters; 18th century methods; etc, is it any wonder that the digital age is overtaking them?

As the author of half a dozen books - indie published - I can see no reason why they don't adopt such methods as "Print On Demand" and install the equivalent of a juke box into places such as Waterstones, Smiths, et al. Ultimately this will bring down the cost of books by saving on transport and warehousing costs therefore making books cheaper - QED more sales.

There is such a machine to do this. The Esspresso Book Machine (a glorified photocopier) that has been installed into several places around the world.

Slim Palmer, Newcastle,

I have written two books and decided not to have them published and earned nothing from them. It should be the joy of writng first and foremost I feel.

Many books in the books shops are ghost written by the celebs so why should they earn a penny from the sale of that book anyway ? I have mixed feelings about the above concerns in the article.

Rights of the reader -v- the rights of the author [and fee].

Ian Payne, WALSALL,

"Book piracy on the internet will ultimately drive authors to stop writing unless radical methods are devised to compensate them for lost sales." What utter rubbish.

Shaun, Scotland,

Down you pen, where are you going to get your income from MacDonalds?

steve tea, manchester, cheshire