This is a somewhat new plot development here; I agree I've never before seen someone blatantly selling content like that, charging per piece of content. It used to be that people sold copyrighted content per megabyte, or you paid for faster transfer - and mostly it was sold as data, not as a particular type of work (i.e. you pay to download "a file", not "a course").

I feel that you are talking about pirates capturing a different section of the market. Well, in this case, the pirates are going after the exact same market (people willing to pay for legitimate content), and they are selling the original product.

It's a bit like if I work in the Rolex factory and just decide to set up Rolex outlets everywhere with the watches I've stolen from there.