Call Me a Dreamer

mmegaera recently discussed a New York Times article in which David Streitfeld bemoans the state of the publishing industry and ties this to readers' book buying habits:

What's undermining the book industry is not the absence of casual readers but the changing habits of devoted readers.

In other words, it's all the fault of people like myself, who increasingly use the Internet both to buy books and later, after their value to us is gone, sell them.

( If guilt doesn't work, change the law: )

ETA: For more information about the Novelists Inc. position on used book sales, see their articles, Amazon.com's policy of promoting used books in competition with new book sales (in which they are joined by The Authors Guild) and Used Book Sales.