I'm not saying piracy has had no part in a positive change in society. I know that, without Napster, stuff like iTunes and Spotify couldn't exist. I know that Spotify itself started out with a repository of pirated music. I know that many cable companies and radio stations just started off by illegally rebroadcasting other networks' content.

The recurring pattern is that these people committing acts of piracy had a larger goal/conclusion in mind. They often ended up legally servicing and selling media and entertainment on a far larger scale than they ever illegally stole it. These people didn't have the resources and content to go about their business otherwise, and saw fit to commit acts of theft in the short-term to convince people that the core of their structure was worth getting access to content legally. The vast majority of pirates don't have such ambitions. They just want free movies.

> The recurring pattern is that these people committing acts of piracy had a larger goal/conclusion in mind.

So an action by the likes of a nascent Spotify, cable company, or radio station (or whomever) is OK as long as the long-term ends justify the short-term means?

> The vast majority of pirates don't have such ambitions. They just want free movies.

How do you know what they want? Can you read each of their minds?

Agreed; I'd also dispute that the existence of early pirates gated the creation of other later (legitimate) businesses. The pirates might have shown folks what was possible, a little earlier than would otherwise have happened. But they did not possess any superior imagination or initiative. It would have happened in a different way.

Furthermore, let's not say that copying an ebook is the moral equivalent of storming a vessel, murdering and raping everyone onboard, plundering the remains and then sinking the thing into the sea. Let's just agree that those two are separate things.

^ I don't subscribe to the idea that it's not ok in the first place.

That doesn't make it ok.