It probably comes down one's personal ethics, views about civic virtue, etc.

I want my neighbor's pile of firewood. They probably wouldn't miss one or two logs, but I have other reasons for not taking any.

I'm not trying to persuade anyone that my view is correct, I'm just saying that I think this is one aspect of how different people approach the question of how to obtain digital entertainment.

The "piracy==stealing" argument doesn't work here. I don't doubt you'd make a copy of your neighbor's pile of firewood if you coveted it.

Yeah, it was a flawed example for sure. All of the other examples I could think of at the time seemed like they'd be inflammatory in various ways.

What does your personal ethics say about paying somebody to build a system that prohibits certain kinds of people from receiving certain kinds of information? Even if a trickle of that money makes it to the artist, doesn't that seems like a technology that's ripe for abuse?