Oh, cry me a river, you government-backed monopolist.
OK, that’s probably harsher than I really feel, at least about individual authors. And they do deserve to get compensated somehow, so I don’t actually begrudge them their copyright rents (even if I think copyright is a shitty way to do it).
But don’t commit the very crime you’re accusing everyone else of. Especially since you JUST FINISHED arguing that books aren’t substitutes for each other. You’re a monopoly. Not even just a de facto market-power possessing behemoth (like Amazon), but a genuine holder of a government-granted and guaranteed exclusive (and transferable) right to the production of a certain class of good. You collect monopoly rents. Don’t pretend you’re dealing with raw supply and demand arriving at a “fair market price”.
I think less of you when you do.
I’m curious, what’s your alternative to copyright?