Last week, my wife sent me an email with an attachment. This in and of itself was not unusual—she continually sends me photos or short videos of our 17-month-old son doing unbelievably cute things on a daily basis. This time, though, the attachment was actually a PDF of a book—the so-called "children's book for adults," Go the F--- to Sleep by Adam Mansbach (yes, the "F" stands for exactly what you think it does).

The PDF had the book in its entirety, which constitutes a dozen or so illustrated pages of what all parents have probably thought toward their young children when they've been uncooperative at bedtime. As a relatively new parent myself, I found the content a hilariously profane take on the tribulations of raising a toddler. I even thought about buying a copy, either for myself or as a gift.

I wasn't alone. Go the F--- to Sleep is now the No. 1 bestseller on Amazon, and the book doesn't even come out until next month (it's all based on pre-orders). What's remarkable is that the book's popularity appears to be generated almost entirely by viral email forwarding and word of mouth. A spokesman for the publisher told The Bay Citizen that, "Up until this week," Ahmad said, "we have done nothing to promote this book."

It's fairly common these days for something to sell well because word about it has gone viral. What's unusual in this case is that the thing that's gone viral is the entirety of the book itself. Other than the physical book, buying the thing doesn't get you anything extra. Yet people are ordering it in droves.

To conclude that piracy is good from this story would be dangerously oversimplifying things. But if the publisher had sealed advance electronic copies of the book with deadlocked digital rights management (DRM), it would never have had a chance to go viral, and I doubt it would be No. 1 at Amazon right now.

But why are they buying it in the first place, when the whole thing is right there in their inbox? Simple: compelling content is compelling content, and people are basically honest. If they encounter something they like, they'll be willing to pay for it—you just need to give them the option. People may encounter some illegitimately gotten MP3s as they travel the Web, but, by and large, it gets them to buy more music. One of the key reasons Napster was so popular in its heyday was because there was no legit downloading option at the time.

For another example, look no further than the British TV series Doctor Who. The popular sci-fi series has been one of the most illegally downloaded shows in history, mainly because its tech-savvy audience hasn't had a legitimate way to see the show at the same time as U.K. viewers—until this year. When the sixth season of the show premiered last month, the BBC took steps to ensure it was broadcast on all its affiliates the same day worldwide. The premiere ended up being BBC America's highest-rated show ever, which appears to indicate that fewer people are scrambing to the darker corners of the Internet to see it.

The "old world" way of dealing with piracy would have been to slap tons of copy protection on the content, scold—or sue—anyone skirting it, and stick doggedly to whatever business model is already in place. You can see how well this works in the practices of a company like Sony, which could fill an encyclopedia with its failures in copy-protected media (UMD? SACD?), and whose first MP3 player couldn't even play MP3s.

Copy protection is a blunt instrument. It creates confusion, discourages innovation, and, most important, does nothing to fulfill its intended purpose: thwarting piracy. Pirates will always find ways to get to the content they want; DRM only ends up hurting honest consumers who just want convenience and a fair price.

None of this is to say a company shouldn't go after people illegally profiting on copyrighted works. But let's be clear: there's a difference between piracy and sharing. By all means, if someone is trying to profit from distrubuting a work that they don't hold the copyright to, they should be stopped. Just leave DRM out of it.

Both Go the F--- to Sleep and Doctor Who are great success stories of traditional models adapting to the tech-savvy audiences of today. The lesson for content creators: Audiences are still there, willing to reward you with their attention (and dollars) if you have compelling content and are willing to acknowledge how people consume media today. The best part is that DRM played no part whatsoever. Maybe it's finally gone the f--- to sleep.