The publishing world is at a crossroads when it comes to ebooks: Publishers/authors can either embrace ebooks, trash all this DRM non-sense and reap the rewards (i.e. profits), or they can take the route of the music industry and fight against the rising tide of ebooks, slap draconian DRM on everything and watch the industry get taken over by pirates. If the latter happens, then it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing RIAA-style lawsuits.

Surprisingly, even among authors, digital distribution is a point of contention. Here are 2 authors that represent two opposite sides of the digital spectrum:

The author who sues his own readers

First is Harlan Ellison who, according to this NYT article, doesn’t take lightly to pirates of his work:

Nine years ago, Mr. Ellison sued Internet service providers for failing to stop a user from posting four of his stories to an online newsgroup. Since settling that suit, he has pursued more than 240 people who have posted his work to the Internet without permission. "If you put your hand in my pocket, you’ll drag back six inches of bloody stump," he said.

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