In reply to peebles boy:
This is such an alien way of looking at thing to me but thinking about it, maybe this is a natural result of people getting used to subscriptions and paying for things 'as a service'. Back in the old days I remember the video game 'Spore' causing massive discontent in online discussions because it would allow only 3 activations per disc, thereby limiting the number of times you could install it on different computers or sell it on to other people (although in practice I think cracked versions were available soon after release anyway if that ever became an issue for you). Of course these days we're used to buying games on Steam etc and are used to there being no possibility of selling a game, film, or other piece of digital content to anyone else. We're getting used to buying a personal license for oneself to consume media rather than buying a license for consumption of media, which I suppose is great news for companies that own the rights, especially the ones that own the rights to decade old franchises which continue to provide an income stream long after a patent on some useful technology would have expired, for example.
Personally I'd say if the publishers are really that worried about loss of income on transferable media then they can charge a premium for physical books (which for all I know they already do). If you're that worried about only indirectly supporting an author then maybe the best thing to do would be to send a cheque to a correspondence address or something, or sell on your used copy of a book and buy a brand new hardcover if you really liked it. Or maybe just leave it a good review somewhere, as that might well result in other people purchasing a new copy. If you didn't think it was any good then I don't see why you'd want to give them any extra money.
I think selling second hand books is expected by publishers, and supported, I'd hope, by most authors who want to share their work with readers. Not to mention the fact that it's often the only option if you start getting into less popular authors from past decades whose books are no longer in print.
Post edited at 17:58