Horror writer Stephen King says it is just not worth tracking down the pirates who put copies of his ebooks online.

While writers like Ursula Le Guin and Harlan Ellison will sue.  Stephen King's approach is to  insult the pirates instead. King told the New York Times that he wondered  how much time and energy do I want to spend chasing these guys.

"My sense is that most of them live in basements floored with carpeting remnants, living on Funions and discount beer," he said.

In other words there is a certain type who reads pirated copies of books and generally they have little enough going on in their lives to make suing them worthwhile. Most authors realise that they will lose some sales to online pirates, but very often these are not harming the bottom line enough to worry about.