Run the numbers on how much money you've given the publishing industry and the entertainment industries in your lifetime. I did this; I'm not giving them a red cent more. A surprising number of authors and artists have bitcoin, nearly all have some web presence and means of donating. Be generous pirates.

Why do you believe that what you wrote is true?

Because I've seen this claim many times over more than a decade, and have seen evidence multiple times. I've also been able to search for it when I was curious and find it without issue.

Here's the first search result, a Vice article from 2018: https://www.vice.com/en/article/evkmz7/study-again-shows-pir...

As a gatekeeping entity that barricades taxpayer-funded docs behind paywalls (from the taxpayers who funded their creation), the thing Elsevier produces is unethical rent-seeking behavior.

> Sending money to the pirates, though, will only produce more piracy.

Until meaningfully ethical alternatives emerge, folks work with what they got.