<p>Modern authors should be compensated for their work. That's why I either buy a book in a store or on iBooks, or I receive it from the publisher (which also pays the author for it). Sometimes my awesome friends gift me books.</p>
<p>For me, it's important that I'm buying a couple of metaphorical cups of cappuccino for Neil Gaiman and Patrick Rothfuss (come on, write the third book already, buddy!), since I spend dozens of hours in conversations with them. It's strange when a reader feels that their time isn't worth such an honest and fair gesture.</p>
<p>As for Tolstoy, Goethe, and Walter Scott, there's no need to pay for their works anymore, but if I ever meet them — coffee's on me, no questions asked.</p>