> It's always funny for me how the lost profits they calculate are inflated as hell.

It's also funny they don't account for the free distribution, reach, branding, and market penetration that Piracy gives them.

We've had the release of the GTA VI trailer a few days ago and it reminded me of how me and my friends became truly fans of the series with GTA Vice City.

We were kids and couldn't afford it so we had to play it in some other way - plus with the modding scene bringing Multi Theft Auto (MTA) we could play GTA Vice City online with friends.

If it wasn't for that there are plenty of people who wouldn't have helped make the franchise into what it became. They got fans for free, who wouldn't be able to play the game either way, thanks to mass distribution. Those folks ended up becoming paying customers into the franchise later down the line.

Minecraft is a good example of that, they never really cracked down on the piracy before the Microsoft acquisition. But since its advertisement was word-to-mouth, that huge pirate userbase probably brought a lot of paying users

I'm very naive about economics, but couldn't we go further and say that the money would just be spent somewhere else in that same economy?

Like concerts or merch where the artist or creator gets much more money than through parasitic music labels and film studios?

I agree here. Person finds pirated music by X artist. Decides they really love the artist and in turn buys concert experience or merch.

It is spent somewhere else by those pirating, because almost everyone lived paycheck to paycheck anyway.