Generally accepted by whom? There are many countries that only consider distribution illegal so I don't think it's generally accepted at all.

I'd say generally accepted by the majority of English speaking/western society? If someone said they were going to "pirate a movie" there's next to zero chance they are referring to the distribution side of that endeavor.

I feel like OP isn't asserting anything even remotely controversial in that definition lol

Um... no? Maybe that's true for English speakers (I'm not a native speaker, so I won't make assumptions), but thinking that Western society views it that way is a big stretch, especially with streaming sites. While some might admit to watching something on a pirate site, many people don't refer to it as piracy when they're using a streaming service.

Who is claiming that using a streaming site is piracy? No one is saying that lol

What the guy was saying is that circumventing payment to watch a movie = pirating, and it seems like you're saying that's not the case. It seems you're saying that people saying "pirating" are referring circumventing payment and distributing, which is not at all what the majority of people mean by pirating.

Pirating != distribution for the vast majority of how people use that word - it means consuming the media without paying for it.

> Who is claiming that using a streaming site is piracy? No one is saying that lol

literally OP:

> "watch free movies online" and find a site streaming bad DVD rips

So "streaming service" (the term you used) implies something like Netflix or Hulu or something, which is a paid service and definitely not piracy. At least in the USA that's how that term is used.

I'm not actually sure what you're issue is at this point. In the US, if someone says they're going to "pirate a movie" they are assuredly not talking about how they are going to be the one distributing the movie, just consuming it - whether that's on a "streaming" site or just downloaded and watched locally.

It seems like your argument is that "piracy" is much more specific than how people actually use the word. SO it's a semantics thing, and that's really fucking stupid lol

> a site streaming bad DVD rips

This is redistributing.