Let's say author gets 40% of each sale and the publisher gets 60%. If a random dude brings a client through 'illegal' affiliate link that pays 2% of the item price. Then yes, he earns 2% without being blessed by the author. But the author earns 20x as much on that sale. While he earns only 2/3 of what publisher does on this sale. So this random dude with his dirty tactics brings the author many times better deal than publisher did.
All numbers made up. I don't have any idea what they might actually be. I'm just presenting my logic with an example, in service of hopefully better understanding.
Well, it turned out the affiliate code linked as "the author's" actually belongs to the publisher anyway.
Let's say author gets 40% of each sale and the publisher gets 60%. If a random dude brings a client through 'illegal' affiliate link that pays 2% of the item price. Then yes, he earns 2% without being blessed by the author. But the author earns 20x as much on that sale. While he earns only 2/3 of what publisher does on this sale. So this random dude with his dirty tactics brings the author many times better deal than publisher did.
All numbers made up. I don't have any idea what they might actually be. I'm just presenting my logic with an example, in service of hopefully better understanding.