That being said, there are plenty of pieces of media that only exist today because of pirated copies being circulated. The immediate example that comes to mind is the Star Wars Holiday Special (though some might argue that that would have been better forgotten).

Games like Earthbound didn't do terribly well when they were released (at least not in the US), but due to pirated ROMs being circulated around the internet, and due to the increased popularity of emulation, the game has since received a second wind and has had several re-releases; obviously anecdata doesn't mean much, but I first played Earthbound with a ROM file when I was 13 years old, and when I saw they were putting it on the SNES Classic, it was literally the only reason I bought one.

I can't remember where I heard this, but they said something to the effect of "piracy is sort of like bacteria; a lot of it is bad for you, and you certainly don't want too much of it, but some bacteria is necessary", and I think that's a pretty good way of viewing it.