Try the 70s.
That was when VHS and cassette tapes started to hit the market and there was no copy protection on those. Following that, people copied floppy disks enough that they had to make that “dont copy that floppy” jingle.
There was a brief period with the switch to digital and CDROMs where piracy stopped, but then CD burners hit the market and it started again.
It turns out in every era, copyright is a sham. Information in its natural state is free - our legal system tries to change that.
The laws around copyright are designed to prevent citizens from doing things.
The laws around human rights are designed to preventing the government from doing things.
The later expands your agency while the former restricts it.
Yall left a big ol’ giant hole in your simplification about these itty bitty things that have an equally outsized impact on all of our lives :
Corporations.
Does this make Marion Stokes this most prolific pirate of all time?
sony v universal still stands, afaik. fair use.
even at that scale, she did it privately for non-commercial purposes.