You are indeed a commodity if the consumers can get their Harry Potter fix from anyone.
(And that is basically what "pirates" have been saying for ages, that distributors are ice block sellers in the refrigerator age, and that distribution is destined to move up the value chain in the digital age.)
The distribution channel is really the commodity. Hell, pirates do it for free.
I'm a pirate, but I realize the worst thing that could happen is widespread piracy. Someone has to pay to create the media.
Note that a commodity still exists, but it would probably mean that the age of exclusive distribution deals would be over. It also implicates prices should go down, so more money should reach creators.
Even a cursory look at their position that places like pirate bay should be allowed to be openly run would lead to creators not getting compensated.
Of course if pressed on it, they'll say, "oh, they can work on donations or whatever people feel like paying." But that's forcing content creators to act like street beggars. Like a movie theatre is going to put a hat in front of the Avengers 2 movie to raised 300 million of Avengers 3. It is ridiculous.
I've had a small bit of dealings with political "pirates", and I have yet to encounter the position you describe. "Information wants to be free" (which I guess you really mean) is really an old catch phrase more associated with the cyber liberty movement of the early 90s and the crypto wars, more than with modern political pirates.
Nobody has suggested movie theaters run on donations alone, but there has been suggestions that movie theaters should be free to license movies outside the distribution agreements. Again, the underlying idea is that distribution will become commodity. Argue against that instead and I will gladly explain the situation further.
The situation with sites like The Pirate Bay is not a matter of letting them operate or not, but a matter of where the common carrier status lies and where the legal responsibility falls (with the uploader, the downloader or the various infrastructure providers).
I'm not sure I understand what that means. Any deal they make to license the movie is a distribution agreement, by definition.
It's all a bit of a power play over their heads and it's one of the reasons why you can't start an online streaming service in today's environment, which was one of the questions that was relevant to the political pirates last I've heard from them.
I don't know much more because I'm out of touch with the whole piratism thing, I just wanted to correct the "why u no pay" attitude earlier. It's a bit silly to think they could have reached parliamentary representation on that party line, and slightly condescending to everyone involved.
The only way the studios would become a commodity supplier is if there were numerous other sources of content people would pay money to watch. That's what it means for your product to be a commodity. E.g. consumer PCs are a commodity because if you don't like Dell, you can get an identical product from HP. But with movies, if you want Harry Potter, you have to play ball with Warner Bros., because consumers want that specific movie, not some generic equivalent.
The studios want DRM not because they don't trust consumers, but because they (rightfully) don't trust the tech industry. It doesn't matter that Harry Potter isn't a commodity if you can pirate it without doing business with Warner Brothers. The tech industry sells hardware and software services for consuming content, and it helps its bottom line if piracy is easy and prevalent. See, e.g., Youtube's being built on the back of infringing Viacom's copyrights. DRM gives the studios a toe-hold in the process to deter products that blatantly promote copyright infringement.