> Calling BS on that because no one is going to pirate unknown movie/song/software.
I've done it. I'd bet that most people who have pirated anything have.
If you were around for the Napster days you'd know that people would often download things they'd never heard of before and had no idea if they'd like it or not (and that was when it could take many hours, even days, for a single album to download!). Piracy is a great way to try out new things. Napster led to an increase in CD sales as people were discovering new artists and music they'd never heard on the radio or MTV (https://www.zdnet.com/article/study-napster-boosts-cd-sales/)
The objection to P2P file sharing was never about money. It was about power and control. It was about gatekeeping. The RIAA wants to decide what you can and can't listen to and what is popular. They don't want their new artists/albums to have to compete with everything ever released. They know piracy would increase sales. They don't want to give up the control over our culture and they don't want the internet to cut them out as useless middlemen. With computers and the internet we don't need them for distribution or advertising. We can do it all without them.
Perhaps the gatekeepers you describe are the same ones who pushed the term 'piracy' this way; to describe any human who copies chunks of 1s and 0s they feel protective of.
Meanwhile, real pirates really steal real physical goods from real people.
Copiers and pirates are not the same thing, not even close.
A lot of the music I listened to in college was because friends gave me copies. Then we'd end up going to shows together, and would even buy CDs, which we'd promptly copy among each other. In fact, sharing was probably the only way for lesser known bands to find an audience at the time since they obviously weren't on the radio.
People are going to pirate unknown movie/song/software because no seller is going to give it shelf space, making it all but unavailable to the general public through 'normal' channels.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I often download obscure games I see on steam to see if they’ll actually hook me or not. I pay for what I actually am able to sink my teeth in to.
The vast majority of movies I download are me going out on a limb. In some cases I’m subscribed to a service they’re available on. I still download them though because I’d prefer to use my own player on my own terms. You can’t even get higher than 720p on Netflix on PC without using edge. Horseshit. It is also not infrequent that there is no way for me to pay someone to watch it online. I’m not going to buy a used copy of a DVD/blu-ray to watch something I’m interested in. Ain’t nobody making money off a used copy. Is resale of used media ethical?
It's more like proofing / sampling: maybe I want to pay your company to print my magazine, but first I want to see if your printing process gives good results. So you print me a copy for free; if I like it, I'll pay for the real thing.
Or when you're at a stall and they give you a bit of cheese to try, or some bit of cake. They know that, if you like it and you can afford it, you'll buy more. The costs to them are small, and the return is worth it. This is just trading-101.
Free labor abused on a systemic scale is completely different. It's like I asked you for a cheese sample as big as what I need to serve a party of 50 people I'm paid to organise.
