This article reminds of the one that I posted early by Cory Doctorow, who post many of his written pieces online and publishes them in hard copy as well. He sees it as a benefit rather then a hindrance that many other authors see. This author, Mark Thoma, is taking a look at 'copy-friendly' businesses and the aspect of having free downloads, and if they do increase the sales of books and other media, in this article he talked about the publishing industry.
The majority of these authors that were talked about in this article where not huge name authors that already had a lot of press about their written pieces. The ones talked about in this article were ones that had not had much publicizing of their books and could use a little bit more 'advertising' so to say. This is when many chose to post their works online, for free downloading and use as long as it was used in a non-commercial way. The ones that chose to use this way of promotion gained a huge about of readers of their works from all around the world. Most of the author agreed that yes, they may have lost some sales of book, but the exposure was so much more worth it. They are able to say that thousands of people had downloaded their book and viewed it and then shared it with their friends, word of mouth advertising is always the best kind.
At the end I liked the comment that this author made. There are some that will never use this type of distribution, as the Thoma puts it, the "blockbuster author." Why would someone like JK Rowlings post their book for free download? Well they wouldn't 't because they already have the fan base "but the next Rowling? That is another story. And perhaps a free one."
Check it out at: http://economistsview.blogspot.com/2007/02/businesses.html