I am ashamed that I hadn’t reasoned this through given all the rubbish digital services have pulled with “purchases” being lies.
Damn, just say stealing. Thought we were pirates. Not cowards
It’s not theft though. When you steal something you deprive someone else of it.
It’s just copyright infringement. Since copyright is an artificial temporary monopoly granted by the government, it’s pretty different from “theft”.
Are you not depriving someone else of their legal right to control the distribution of copies of their work?
Yes, which is not theft. It’s not murder either. Nor is it blasphemy. It’s just copyright infringement.
If you don’t drink a verification can, are you depriving Mountain Dew of their legal right to make you drink verification cans? If you don’t enroll in the IOF, are you depriving Israel of its legal right to murder thousands of darker skinned people? Maybe some legal rights are so stupid they shouldn’t exist?
The media corporations in their greed and cruelty have long earned violent reprisal and deserve to be sacked.
Pirating their content is comparatively petty.
But better still is to not pirate their content and let it remain unseen and forgotten.
The reward for creators and artists is to become a part of culture. The promise of riches is a false, capitalist dream.