See, this is what I'm really trying to say:
I think the distribution model I'm suggesting will make it a hell of a lot harder for the big guys to exploit others, and people who aren't being exploited all the time have a hell of a lot harder time saying "I'll just steal it, because it's not like the artist was getting any money from this anyway, and I hate big business! They're just exploiting me and my friends and giving absolutely nothing back!"
This is, so far as I understand it, the usual rationale.
They'll have to say: "So, how do I feel about stealing from Akira Toriyama and never giving him a penny for his effort, this guy who regularly thanks me as a fan for support, answered my friend's letter very graciously, supports a wife and son, works absolutely brutal hours, inspires other artists I like a lot, and has provided me with a new chapter of his fun and carefully-drawn story every week for the past five years?" or any other artist you might care to name.
(Hell, I actually think that many translations would be better and more professional if they were left up to the fans. The fans already know there's a market, they nominally translate for free, and they're absolutely obsessed with faithfulness to the source material [hence no shitty problems with, say, censoring]--plus, subtitles are usually better-timed and more imaginatively arranged)
I buy almost nothing new, and even fewer things at fully-priced release. But if I were able to get most of my shitty old books for the price of the paper they're printed on, plus a little fee to any annotator who worked on the project, I'd be much happier about buying them hot off the press. There's absolutely no reason why a standard reprint of Pride and Prejudice should cost 8 dollars new, with nothing added by anyone (except a bow to my difficulty reading things off of screens). I can't pay Jane Austen for it, and I don't feel at all beholden to her estate for what was her work.
As far as the fire-fighting thing goes, all I'm going to say is "well, they learned." The attitude is bad right now, but I sure as heck don't think it's something that can't be unlearned--and we are going to enter a transition period, so I'm angling for an atmosphere that takes advantage of the biggest "negatives" in our distribution model.