Well you can probably guess our position, which we came to only after a lot of thought: "necessary evil". In our plugin FAQ (http://www.nr.com/plugin/plugin_faq.html) we give this further explanation:

We want to build a unified infrastructure that allows us to deliver all of the following: (i) free content that is in the public domain; (ii) content that is copyrighted, but nevertheless free; and (iii) copyrighted content by subscription. To do this in today's world we must satisfy authors and publishers that their interests are not being completely disregarded. Of course, we must also satisfy users that the infrastructure is workable and efficient.

Do you think our dream is workable? If so, then we might have some very exciting things in store! If not, then are big technical reference works doomed? (We could never have written the later versions of Numerical Recipes without the income from the earlier versions. Just so you know.)