Breaking copyright is not the same as stealing. When you steal something your actually deprive someone of a resource. When you break copyright the owner still retains the original, you're making an unauthorized copy of it. It's different that actually going into the video store and smuggling a DVD out under your jacket. One is a criminal act, the other is not.
Some argue that it is unfair because you're getting content for free that you would normally have to pay for, but this makes the assumption the person would have still downloaded the content if it wasn't free. If not, no one is losing any money. Free downloads are a bit of a double-edge sword. Some people are bound to be exposed to new artists that they may contribute money towards in the future and others are still going to break copyright no matter what.
Personally, I think the RIAA/MPAA's response to the whole situation has been nothing short of terrible. If there's one thing that can be learned from pirating is that people like having instant access to a wealth of media without having to leave their homes. Instead, the RIAA et al have been using lawyers, scare tactics and political lobbying to not only alienate their customers but to make digital media even more difficult to acquire or consume for those who do still pay for it.
I think the whole industry would have been far better off investing all that time and money in an infrastructure to deliver media to consumers as quickly and easily as pirating does. Apple picked up on this a bit with iTunes, but that still means you have to buy from Apple and it often means digital locks too.
I don't see why the industry isn't trying to promote or create legal technology for consuming media as easily as pirated media. If it was easier to acquire the media legally (at a reasonable cost), I think they would win a lot of people over.
For example, I am a big fan of imdb. I love to read about movies on there. How hard would it be to include a link where I could download the movie for a fee of $2 or something? I would use that all the time if they had it. Or why not set up a website where I can stream movies? And even better include apps and instructions on how I can stream them to my television. And there are a lot of people out there way more creative than I am they could think of a wealth of new ideas.
It's all shame, really. I'm not advocating piracy, I'm just expressing my contempt for how its being dealt with.
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