Morality and downloading

[One Above All]

The question I want to know is who is being hurt when a movie or a song is pirated? The artist? Please. Go perform your art. If people have the money to spend, they will still pay for your shit if it's worth it.

That's a point that lots of people cannot answer.  Where is the demonstrable harm?  People act like artists DESERVE to earn money, like people OWE it to them because they listen, yet as with any business owner, it's the job of the merchant, in this case a musician, to provide something of value to an audience at a price the audience is willing to pay.  Just because they make it, that doesn't mean they're going to get paid for it or that people will buy their product.  It is fallacy to think that simply having something to sell guarantees that you'll be showered in green.

I'm still thinking some anti-piracy advocates assume most/all pirates can afford the stuff they download, but choose not to, when the opposite is true. The others subscribe to the kind of selfishness I mentioned above: if the artist doesn't win something, then others shouldn't so much as have the chance to win something either.