Remember the goods old days when everything was free? Don't equate democracy with capitalism, and don't forget to pay the tax on that J. K. Rowling opus.

Thank you. I have worked for two non-profit university publishers over the course of a decade, and I grow tired of justifications for theft untempered by any deep knowledge of the value many (I do not say all) publishers add to the books in their charge—and the often slavish devotion they have to them. Nor do I sense, from those outraged by the prospect of paying for the product of someone's labor, any understanding of the authorial process or the discipline and time required to produce a book that merits publication. I am also increasingly impatient with the cults of personality that have sprung up around a few rabid self-promoters repeating easy-to-remember credos on endless loop.

If you wanted the book enough to search out a copy but don't want to go through all the unnecessary effort of compensating those who invested a slice of their lives in it, perhaps you could check it out of a library instead. You might even be able to peruse a digital copy from a library with a Safari subscription, or a netLibray subscription, or an ebrary subscription, or a Books 24 x 7 subscription, or a subscription to any of the many other aggregators tendering such content.