Could authors start giving their material away for free to try to combat piracy? Society Of Authors chair Tracy Chevalier, complaining about digital copying, suggests yes. This glum assessment in The Times: “It is a dam that’s cracking. We need to think radically. We have to evolve and create a very different pay system, possibly by making the content available free to all and finding a way to get paid separately.”

Chevalier is searching for payment from either government, business, wealthy patrons or the public. But the notion that books could, like music, be given away for for free and have their income replaced by some other source may be fanciful - music delivered free to consumers will still paid for to labels by services like ISPs keen to offer value-added services, and such services are as yet unlikely to see books as of equivalent value.