Slate‘s media critic Jack Shafer challenged publishers in his new column, urging opponents of $9.99 digital books to change their minds before an illegal download site can steal their business.

Shafer argued that Napster was created because customers were unhappy with MP3 prices around the turn of the century, proposing that the advent of iTunes and the 99-cent MP3 saved the music industry. As customers continuing to boycott e-books priced less than $9.99 on the Amazon store, Shafer appears to have a number of digital book buyers who agree with him on prices.

Here’s more from the piece: “Cool devices that make electronic reading painless are just around the corner, and the e-book market is about to explode. If publishers insist on pushing prices too high and curbing availability, consumers could rebel–as they did with the sharing of MP3s–and normalize the trafficking of infringing e-books.”