There is a slight hitch to copyright law, however.  Unlike hamburgers, books can be resold.  The author gets no part of that.  Nor do publishers and they don’t like it.

Publishers recently scored big when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in their favor in a case involving the resale of textbooks.  (Read Publishers Weekly article) Simply stated, a student purchased books that were produced elsewhere and resold them to his fellow students.  It is the “produced elsewhere” part of the transaction that got him into trouble.  The court agreed that he violated the law.  No problem there.  However the court went on to rule that books produced outside the jurisdiction of the US copyright law cannot be resold. 

You say "So what?"  Where are many of our goods currently manufactured? China.  China is outside the jurisdiction of US law.  Therefore a book printed there cannot be resold.  The market most affected is textbooks.  The publishers may have won a battle but, in doing so, they knifed the kids and have potentially unleashed a reaction that will negatively impact all writers.

Not long ago, I spoke to a divinity student who confessed he used a pirated copy of a textbook.  He simply did not have the $400 the book cost. 

In forcing students to always buy new textbooks at ridiculously inflated prices, US publishers are pushing them to pirate.  If they overcome their consciences often enough, they will not stop at textbooks. (Pirating is already a big problem. Let’s not have divinity students piling on.) The end result is that everyone loses: the students, the writers, and the publishers.

We cannot undo the court’s decision. However we can encourage our publishers to print books here so that they can be resold.  We may not make any money on the resales but at least we can keep our kids from stealing.