Not my discussion, but I wanted to add a few points
I am talking there about the number of people who actually get to enjoy the work, without regard to how they obtain it, and about who is actually paying for it.
Out of curiosity, what harm do you considered is done if someone never would have paid for a sale? If I download a crappy movie I never would have paid for under any circumstances instead of say, jut surfing free websites, what impact does that have?
There isn't a 100% piracy rate only because other people obey the law and pay for their content
That's pretty darn fallacious. Piracy is decriminalized or legal in some places and there is not 100% piracy. The law matters little except in the USA and a few countries in Europe where the citizens have been intimidated. In general, people will pay for things they think are worth paying for if they can. That is why there isn't %100 piracy.
If we did legalise copying for personal/non-commercial use or completely get rid of copyright, so honest people were free to enjoy the same advantages as pirates claim today anyway, then piracy would no longer exist. No-one would have any legal obligation to pay for anything once the first few copies started floating around on the Internet ten minutes after the launch of the latest film. Paying for content would become purely a matter of convenience or charity.
As above, piracy is legal and or decriminalized in many places. What you have stated has not come to pass, anywhere. People tend to pay for things that they consider worth paying for.
However, in a world where we condone/abolish piracy, anyone is free to set up a legal download service with all the same content as the original suppliers' services but charge hardly anything for it or fund it entirely through ads, because they don't have to make back the fixed cost of production before they start to make any profit.
I believe we should condone piracy for the individual. I do not in anyway believe we should abolish copyright, allow companies to infringe copyright or allow people to profit of other peoples work like you supposed. I even have a problem with the ads on thepiratebay.
There is no way the guys spending all the money on production can beat the guys who don't on price, and they no longer have any other advantage.
When movies and games are still making hundreds of millions in net profit based on sales, then I don't really buy that. A business model like that is rightfully illegal and not sustainable.
While that is a common argument, I think it is fundamentally flawed. The entire point of money as a replacement for barter is that those who create more value one way or another will receive more money, which they can then use to pay for things that they in turn value.
Sure and we had quite a revolution of sorts in the change from a barter based system to a currency based system as things changed. However, now with the Internet things have changed again. We both know there is not any real way to prevent piracy so it has to be considered now in these matters. I don't think old ways of thinking apply when copying is involved. I can copy a digital file millions of time without loss of quality or degradation of any sort. That simply is not possible with physical things which is what the currency based system relies on.
It is one huge incentive scheme. As soon as you say someone without money wouldn't have bought something they valued anyway, even if they had no other means of acquiring it and had to go without, you have completely ignored the incentive that if someone wants something valuable and can't afford it, they have to produce more value themselves to earn it.
I have not ignored it, I just think that piracy is a better solution. In many societies there are people who simply won't have the opportunity to buy what they need. People who are struggling to pay rent and get food and to survive in general, it's going to be a long time before they can pay the $1000 for Adobe CS4 or the $200 for Office or the many hundreds of dollars that technical books can cost. Yet, by pirating they can then get experience, get skills and be worth more than they could without piracy and contribute back in a positive manner. The point is that overall it allows people to give back more than what they take, which is a good thing.
Also, I don't for an instant believe that the overwhelming majority of pirates "honestly could not afford under any circumstances" to pay for what they're enjoying. That is an absurd claim. They might have to give up going to the cinema for a couple of weeks, or forego that nice bottle of wine at the restaurant, or buy a slightly slower PC to play the game on, but no-one is going to lose their home or have to take on a second job because they spent a few $10s they couldn't afford on a game or a movie or some new music. I'm sure that some people really couldn't afford to buy everything they pirate, but perhaps they should try living within their means or work harder to increase their spending power; see my general comments above.
I don't know about this. In my experience most software pirates tend to be students or people in developing countries. For media pirates I would agree with you. For me personally I pay for mixtapes from artists I like, but it is rare I can find a set of MP#3's without any protection. If they are protected I won't pay for them. I agree not all pirates do so out of inability to afford paying for what they pirate but I would think a substantial portion do. That isn't my only point however, it is just a point.
I don't think it is so different, though. In either case, you are violating a social norm that has been codified in law. After all, has an artist (in the general sense) who sets out on a project in the expectation that it will be financially viable but who then doesn't get the money the law they are owed because of piracy not essentially invested in something that was not as valuable as it was made out to be?
Remember first of all, that it is not law everywhere. As I said, in many places piracy is legal.
Even rolling with the legal argument, as long as an artist makes a profit I don't see a problem. Let's say an artist makes a cd and needs to sell 100 cd's at $10/cd to be make the profit. Now, there are two main different scenarios to consider. Either:
They sell 100 cd's and make the profit they hoped for, while some
Copyright is basically an economic tool. It creates a rule under which various economic effects result. Infringing copyright breaks those effects. While it's true that the money lost was "never really there", and therefore copyright infringement is not really the same as theft, the money should have been there according to the economics mandated by law.
That still doesn't explain how it is more like fraud.
In any case, you seem to be equating a potentially lost sale with a lost sale, which is fallacious. Lets say someone pirates software that they honestly could not afford under any circumstances. If they never would have paid for the software, it can not be considered a lost sale. Yes, they have something they may not be entitled to but I think this is ultimately good for society and the economy.
Compare this with the situation of, say, a mis-sold financial product. A fraudster advises you to invest your pension in his poorly performing fund, which generates only a mild yield for you but a lot of profit for him from the fees. It is clear that you could have invested in a much better performing fund instead if you hadn't been deceived, giving you a much bigger annuity at retirement, and that the fraudster has profited from your misfortune. However, you haven't really lost that money, because you never really had it in the first place. Your actual loss is $0. You had a reasonable expectation that, according to the rules of our society, you would have had more money if you had not been cheated, but sadly reasonable expectations don't buy your granddaughter's birthday present.
Interesting argument. I would say the analogy breaks down in that piracy does not involve any deception or misrepresentation. There is a pretty big difference in taking something for free and tricking someone into investing in a certain fund at their expense and your benefit.
It is unfair on those who pay for copyrighted works according to the rules, because they are subsidising others who do not. Please see my other post for why.
I would point out that relying on an argument that involes the rules, should take into account societies where piracy is allowed. What then?
I think your other post contains flawed reasoning.
The honest people are paying double, while the freeloaders are enjoying the work just as much but contributing nothing.
The asking price is fixed and does not vary based on the number of purchasers. If the artist asked $20 a cd and 5 people paid it and 5 got it for free, are you saying had all 10 people paid for it they would only have to pay $10 each?
You also fail to take into account one of the main reasons of the piracy increases sales argument, which is word of mouth. Those 5 freeloaders may each tell 5 of their friends, and if that causes even 6 of those 25 friends to buy the album then the artist is in a better position than he was without the freeloaders.
Sure, but it still turns up things like this, which debunks one of the most popular studies cited by the anti-copyright crowd fairly comprehensively (not only by suggesting entirely different conclusions from the same source data, but also by mentioning that the study's own authors revised their views later on).
First, that is an interesting link, so thanks. I am somewhat skeptical of that site however as it doesn't seem to be terrible objective. It makes various assumptions such as equating potential sales with lost sales and overstating the academic consensus. It also seems to get hung up on the fact that filesharers pay less than music buyers(false dichotomy?) ignoring the positive effects they can have.
There is far too much selective evidence quoting in this debate. It's entirely possible that in some cases, sharing a work freely has resulted in higher sales, because of the advertising effect or whatever other phenomenon. I'm not dis
It's more like fraud. And fraud is a criminal offence with substantial penalties in many places, because it is damaging to the victims,
You may be the first I have seen who compares piracy to being more like fraud than stealing. I don't understand your reasoning, could you elaborate?
is unfair to those who conduct their financial business legally, and can have severe economic consequences if done on a large scale.
How is it unfair to people who do their business legally? How is it unfair in a legal sense where piracy is legal? How are there severe economic consequences when piracy has been shown to have positive effects for the economy?
Well, the first recorded usage of the term in the sense we're talking about is given in the early 1700s by most etymological dictionaries, so you're only off by three centuries [etymonline.com]. Hey, at least you were close.
Wiki says at least since 1603, so at the most I was off by a century.
Well, given that Slashdot readership is obviously neutral on this issue, I'm sure that's a representative sample of the literature.
I'm also struggling to find all those studies, but I suppose it's just that my Google-fu is weak. Maybe you could help me out by citing some of them?
The slashdot readership is irrelevant, as they had no influence on the studies that Slashdot chose to report.
I hope that helped. You're Google-fu must indeed be weak.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of abundant high-quality work created by people who have rent to pay.
You seem to imply that piracy will prevent the people who create high quality work from being able to pay their rent. That doesn't seem to match with the evidence. Care to elaborate?
It no longer makes sense to have a business model that doesn't take piracy into account. It isn't telling people how they should choose to profit, it's making them realize that some people are going to copy their shit and they cannot stop it. So they should use that to their advantage as much as possible.
It certainly isn't stealing in a legal sense in many places. You can argue it is stealing in a moral sense, although that is hard to do without proving a lost sale.
Stuff like ACTA is bad, because piracy is inevitable. I don't think we should be trying to prevent piracy at all, as piracy is actually a good thing.
Firstly, it is copying. It isn't stealing. If it was just stealing the term piracy would not need to have been invented as distinct from stealing. Keep in mind that the word Piracy has existed for about 500 years, and only in the last decade or so has come to be taken as stealing.
Why is Piracy good?
Guaranteed DRM free content - I don't want someone else in control of something I own
Availability, instead of waiting up to 1.5 years if the studios decide that it should be available in my country.
I believe it's good for society. Allowing people who can't afford something to be influenced and give back to society.
It helps the artists. Almost every study about piracy posted on/. shows it leads to an increase in sales
Keep in mind piracy is legal in many countries, for good reason. This is an important point for people who rely on the piracy is stealing argument. Those countries tend to be smarter about such matters than the US and western Europe.
Piracy is not going away. Piracy is inevitable. Why waste so many resources on what is arguably a good thing?
So fucking retarded. They both made points obvious to anyone holding that view. That fact that they hold the same view at an abstract level is not evidence that they are the same person or a shill. Unless most accounts on here are shills for Linus. Yeah, that works.
How retarded. I'm often Pro MS as well, because I care about technology from a pragmatic rather than ideological point of view. If I agree with any of those accounts I guess I'm just another sockpuppet in on the conspiracy right? You have real problems to construct an ad hominum of this magnitude.
Wow. I really wasn't expecting that as a reply, as I thought we were having a civilized conversation. I was fine with you arbitrarily separating theft and stealing, because I was pointing out that piracy is separate from both of those. Which is fact. Now you have resorted to insults, which shows that you are happy to be willfully ignorant. A shame.
My point is that both stealing and theft are irrelevant to a discussion concerning piracy. The word piracy was created to describe copyright infringement, distinct from stealing and/or theft. While you may feel bad about copying something you didn't pay for that doesn't mean it is stealing.
BTW, downloading a movie is perfectly fine in many countries, so in those countries do you still consider it stealing?
Let's forget about the lines you have drawn between theft and piracy and realize that they are both separate categories, unrelated to the distinct category of piracy. I would recommend reading about the history of piracy in the context of copyright to get a clearer sense of this. It's only in the last decade that they conflated a word that had existed for about 500 years with stealing and/or theft, when previously it was unrelated.
My point is that both stealing and theft are irrelevant to a discussion concerning piracy. The word piracy was created to describe copyright infringement, distinct from stealing and/or theft. While you may feel bad about copying something you didn't pay for that doesn't mean it is stealing.
FWIW, downloading a movie is perfectly fine in many countries, so in those countries do you still consider it stealing?
With all due respect, I feel you are missing my point, or perhaps I am misunderstanding yours. I feel that you are linking piracy to stealing as you have defined it. I am making the point that piracy is a separate thing from theft and stealing altogether.
Bonch, you're kind of an idiot when it comes to piracy. Stop letting your emotions cloud things and actually think things through for a moment.
Piracy has little or no cost to content owners. A potential sale is not a lost sale. They still make mad money. People who can't afford it or wouldn't otherwise pay for it still getting access is not a bad thing, as they they give back to the community. Piracy results in a net benefit, rather than a net loss.
Seriously kiddo, think about it.
Why doesn't slashdot let me paragraph my first...paragraph?
Bonch, you're kind of an idiot when it comes to piracy. Stop letting your emotions cloud things and actually think things through for a moment.
Piracy has little or no cost to content owners. A potential sale is not a lost sale. They still make mad money. People who can't afford it or wouldn't otherwise pay for it still getting access is not a bad thing, as they they give back to the community. Piracy results in a net benefit, rather than a net loss.
That sounds like a personal definition, which is fine. But when talking about the problem and potential solutions we need to use agreed upon definitions. Most dictionary definitions tend to say something about deprivation or the act of stealing having some negative affect on the owner. This isn't true with piracy.
It should also be noted that piracy is a specific word dealing with infringing copyright. The definition of piracy does not make use of the words steal or theft or even imply the idea of such. Because the two are unrelated.
Slashdot Mirror
It means they are stored in a less than ideally secure way. If a script can retrieve the password, so can an attacker.
Not my discussion, but I wanted to add a few points
I am talking there about the number of people who actually get to enjoy the work, without regard to how they obtain it, and about who is actually paying for it.
Out of curiosity, what harm do you considered is done if someone never would have paid for a sale? If I download a crappy movie I never would have paid for under any circumstances instead of say, jut surfing free websites, what impact does that have?
There isn't a 100% piracy rate only because other people obey the law and pay for their content
That's pretty darn fallacious. Piracy is decriminalized or legal in some places and there is not 100% piracy. The law matters little except in the USA and a few countries in Europe where the citizens have been intimidated. In general, people will pay for things they think are worth paying for if they can. That is why there isn't %100 piracy.
If we did legalise copying for personal/non-commercial use or completely get rid of copyright, so honest people were free to enjoy the same advantages as pirates claim today anyway, then piracy would no longer exist. No-one would have any legal obligation to pay for anything once the first few copies started floating around on the Internet ten minutes after the launch of the latest film. Paying for content would become purely a matter of convenience or charity.
As above, piracy is legal and or decriminalized in many places. What you have stated has not come to pass, anywhere. People tend to pay for things that they consider worth paying for.
However, in a world where we condone/abolish piracy, anyone is free to set up a legal download service with all the same content as the original suppliers' services but charge hardly anything for it or fund it entirely through ads, because they don't have to make back the fixed cost of production before they start to make any profit.
I believe we should condone piracy for the individual. I do not in anyway believe we should abolish copyright, allow companies to infringe copyright or allow people to profit of other peoples work like you supposed. I even have a problem with the ads on thepiratebay.
There is no way the guys spending all the money on production can beat the guys who don't on price, and they no longer have any other advantage.
When movies and games are still making hundreds of millions in net profit based on sales, then I don't really buy that. A business model like that is rightfully illegal and not sustainable.
While that is a common argument, I think it is fundamentally flawed. The entire point of money as a replacement for barter is that those who create more value one way or another will receive more money, which they can then use to pay for things that they in turn value.
Sure and we had quite a revolution of sorts in the change from a barter based system to a currency based system as things changed. However, now with the Internet things have changed again. We both know there is not any real way to prevent piracy so it has to be considered now in these matters. I don't think old ways of thinking apply when copying is involved. I can copy a digital file millions of time without loss of quality or degradation of any sort. That simply is not possible with physical things which is what the currency based system relies on.
It is one huge incentive scheme. As soon as you say someone without money wouldn't have bought something they valued anyway, even if they had no other means of acquiring it and had to go without, you have completely ignored the incentive that if someone wants something valuable and can't afford it, they have to produce more value themselves to earn it.
I have not ignored it, I just think that piracy is a better solution. In many societies there are people who simply won't have the opportunity to buy what they need. People who are struggling to pay rent and get food and to survive in general, it's going to be a long time before they can pay the $1000 for Adobe CS4 or the $200 for Office or the many hundreds of dollars that technical books can cost. Yet, by pirating they can then get experience, get skills and be worth more than they could without piracy and contribute back in a positive manner. The point is that overall it allows people to give back more than what they take, which is a good thing.
Also, I don't for an instant believe that the overwhelming majority of pirates "honestly could not afford under any circumstances" to pay for what they're enjoying. That is an absurd claim. They might have to give up going to the cinema for a couple of weeks, or forego that nice bottle of wine at the restaurant, or buy a slightly slower PC to play the game on, but no-one is going to lose their home or have to take on a second job because they spent a few $10s they couldn't afford on a game or a movie or some new music. I'm sure that some people really couldn't afford to buy everything they pirate, but perhaps they should try living within their means or work harder to increase their spending power; see my general comments above.
I don't know about this. In my experience most software pirates tend to be students or people in developing countries. For media pirates I would agree with you. For me personally I pay for mixtapes from artists I like, but it is rare I can find a set of MP#3's without any protection. If they are protected I won't pay for them. I agree not all pirates do so out of inability to afford paying for what they pirate but I would think a substantial portion do. That isn't my only point however, it is just a point.
I don't think it is so different, though. In either case, you are violating a social norm that has been codified in law. After all, has an artist (in the general sense) who sets out on a project in the expectation that it will be financially viable but who then doesn't get the money the law they are owed because of piracy not essentially invested in something that was not as valuable as it was made out to be?
Remember first of all, that it is not law everywhere. As I said, in many places piracy is legal.
Even rolling with the legal argument, as long as an artist makes a profit I don't see a problem. Let's say an artist makes a cd and needs to sell 100 cd's at $10/cd to be make the profit. Now, there are two main different scenarios to consider. Either:
Copyright is basically an economic tool. It creates a rule under which various economic effects result. Infringing copyright breaks those effects. While it's true that the money lost was "never really there", and therefore copyright infringement is not really the same as theft, the money should have been there according to the economics mandated by law.
That still doesn't explain how it is more like fraud.
In any case, you seem to be equating a potentially lost sale with a lost sale, which is fallacious. Lets say someone pirates software that they honestly could not afford under any circumstances. If they never would have paid for the software, it can not be considered a lost sale. Yes, they have something they may not be entitled to but I think this is ultimately good for society and the economy.
Compare this with the situation of, say, a mis-sold financial product. A fraudster advises you to invest your pension in his poorly performing fund, which generates only a mild yield for you but a lot of profit for him from the fees. It is clear that you could have invested in a much better performing fund instead if you hadn't been deceived, giving you a much bigger annuity at retirement, and that the fraudster has profited from your misfortune. However, you haven't really lost that money, because you never really had it in the first place. Your actual loss is $0. You had a reasonable expectation that, according to the rules of our society, you would have had more money if you had not been cheated, but sadly reasonable expectations don't buy your granddaughter's birthday present.
Interesting argument. I would say the analogy breaks down in that piracy does not involve any deception or misrepresentation. There is a pretty big difference in taking something for free and tricking someone into investing in a certain fund at their expense and your benefit.
It is unfair on those who pay for copyrighted works according to the rules, because they are subsidising others who do not. Please see my other post for why.
I would point out that relying on an argument that involes the rules, should take into account societies where piracy is allowed. What then?
I think your other post contains flawed reasoning.
The honest people are paying double, while the freeloaders are enjoying the work just as much but contributing nothing.
The asking price is fixed and does not vary based on the number of purchasers. If the artist asked $20 a cd and 5 people paid it and 5 got it for free, are you saying had all 10 people paid for it they would only have to pay $10 each?
You also fail to take into account one of the main reasons of the piracy increases sales argument, which is word of mouth. Those 5 freeloaders may each tell 5 of their friends, and if that causes even 6 of those 25 friends to buy the album then the artist is in a better position than he was without the freeloaders.
Sure, but it still turns up things like this, which debunks one of the most popular studies cited by the anti-copyright crowd fairly comprehensively (not only by suggesting entirely different conclusions from the same source data, but also by mentioning that the study's own authors revised their views later on).
First, that is an interesting link, so thanks. I am somewhat skeptical of that site however as it doesn't seem to be terrible objective. It makes various assumptions such as equating potential sales with lost sales and overstating the academic consensus. It also seems to get hung up on the fact that filesharers pay less than music buyers(false dichotomy?) ignoring the positive effects they can have.
There is far too much selective evidence quoting in this debate. It's entirely possible that in some cases, sharing a work freely has resulted in higher sales, because of the advertising effect or whatever other phenomenon. I'm not dis
Words sometimes have more than one meaning. Crazy, huh?
It's more like fraud. And fraud is a criminal offence with substantial penalties in many places, because it is damaging to the victims,
You may be the first I have seen who compares piracy to being more like fraud than stealing. I don't understand your reasoning, could you elaborate?
is unfair to those who conduct their financial business legally, and can have severe economic consequences if done on a large scale.
How is it unfair to people who do their business legally? How is it unfair in a legal sense where piracy is legal? How are there severe economic consequences when piracy has been shown to have positive effects for the economy?
Well, the first recorded usage of the term in the sense we're talking about is given in the early 1700s by most etymological dictionaries, so you're only off by three centuries [etymonline.com]. Hey, at least you were close.
Wiki says at least since 1603, so at the most I was off by a century.
Well, given that Slashdot readership is obviously neutral on this issue, I'm sure that's a representative sample of the literature.
I'm also struggling to find all those studies, but I suppose it's just that my Google-fu is weak. Maybe you could help me out by citing some of them?
The slashdot readership is irrelevant, as they had no influence on the studies that Slashdot chose to report.
Some links to studies:
Do Illegal Copies of Movies Reduce the Revenue of Legal Products? The case of TV animation in Japan
Swiss Government Study Finds Internet Downloads Increase Sales
Canadian Study: Piracy Boosts CD Sales
I hope that helped. You're Google-fu must indeed be weak.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of abundant high-quality work created by people who have rent to pay.
You seem to imply that piracy will prevent the people who create high quality work from being able to pay their rent. That doesn't seem to match with the evidence. Care to elaborate?
It no longer makes sense to have a business model that doesn't take piracy into account. It isn't telling people how they should choose to profit, it's making them realize that some people are going to copy their shit and they cannot stop it. So they should use that to their advantage as much as possible.
It certainly isn't stealing in a legal sense in many places. You can argue it is stealing in a moral sense, although that is hard to do without proving a lost sale.
Stuff like ACTA is bad, because piracy is inevitable. I don't think we should be trying to prevent piracy at all, as piracy is actually a good thing.
Firstly, it is copying. It isn't stealing. If it was just stealing the term piracy would not need to have been invented as distinct from stealing. Keep in mind that the word Piracy has existed for about 500 years, and only in the last decade or so has come to be taken as stealing.
Why is Piracy good?
Keep in mind piracy is legal in many countries, for good reason. This is an important point for people who rely on the piracy is stealing argument. Those countries tend to be smarter about such matters than the US and western Europe.
Piracy is not going away. Piracy is inevitable. Why waste so many resources on what is arguably a good thing?
Not everyone who reads slashdot posts often enough to bother registering. Why should that matter?
So fucking retarded. They both made points obvious to anyone holding that view. That fact that they hold the same view at an abstract level is not evidence that they are the same person or a shill. Unless most accounts on here are shills for Linus. Yeah, that works.
I find Opera all but unusable, because it is too often different for the sake of being different.
You want to know why I advocate and condone Piracy?
Keep in mind piracy is legal in many countries, for good reason. Those countries tend to be smarter than the US and western europe.
Bonch is a subscriber. Fool.
How retarded. I'm often Pro MS as well, because I care about technology from a pragmatic rather than ideological point of view. If I agree with any of those accounts I guess I'm just another sockpuppet in on the conspiracy right? You have real problems to construct an ad hominum of this magnitude.
Wow. I really wasn't expecting that as a reply, as I thought we were having a civilized conversation. I was fine with you arbitrarily separating theft and stealing, because I was pointing out that piracy is separate from both of those. Which is fact. Now you have resorted to insults, which shows that you are happy to be willfully ignorant. A shame.
Careful, your ignorance is starting to show.
BTW, downloading a movie is perfectly fine in many countries, so in those countries do you still consider it stealing?
Let's forget about the lines you have drawn between theft and piracy and realize that they are both separate categories, unrelated to the distinct category of piracy. I would recommend reading about the history of piracy in the context of copyright to get a clearer sense of this. It's only in the last decade that they conflated a word that had existed for about 500 years with stealing and/or theft, when previously it was unrelated.
FWIW, downloading a movie is perfectly fine in many countries, so in those countries do you still consider it stealing?
With all due respect, I feel you are missing my point, or perhaps I am misunderstanding yours. I feel that you are linking piracy to stealing as you have defined it. I am making the point that piracy is a separate thing from theft and stealing altogether.
Piracy has little or no cost to content owners. A potential sale is not a lost sale. They still make mad money. People who can't afford it or wouldn't otherwise pay for it still getting access is not a bad thing, as they they give back to the community. Piracy results in a net benefit, rather than a net loss.
Seriously kiddo, think about it.
Why doesn't slashdot let me paragraph my first...paragraph?
Piracy has little or no cost to content owners. A potential sale is not a lost sale. They still make mad money. People who can't afford it or wouldn't otherwise pay for it still getting access is not a bad thing, as they they give back to the community. Piracy results in a net benefit, rather than a net loss.
Seriously kiddo, think about it.
It should also be noted that piracy is a specific word dealing with infringing copyright. The definition of piracy does not make use of the words steal or theft or even imply the idea of such. Because the two are unrelated.
So Google away.
For fucks sake. Piracy is not stealing. It's piracy. It's not just semantics either. If there is no deprivation then it isn't fucking theft.