Damn, that is a monster post there! Haven't read it all yet, but from what I did, well said!
I pirate, and I have no qualms about it. Why?
Well for one, because I can, and I am hurting absolutely NO ONE in doing so, nor am I taking anything away. So what exactly is the problem? It's not like stealing where you are taking a PHYSICAL, tangible item from somebody else. This is purely digital. I view it more as sharing. The things I pirate have been willingly SHARED by people who have purchased the product legally and have taken the time to put the content online. Also, 99% of the things I pirate I wouldn't have bought anyway, (or if anything I probably would have bought it used), so I'm not taking potential revenue away because I wasn't going to buy their product anyway. That is why I pirated it in the first place.. I did not WANT to buy it, or at least I didn't want it ENOUGH to buy it.
Second, like the OP said, music, movies, and especially games, are WAY overpriced today. I simply can't afford to buy many of the things I want. And somehow I can't feel especially sorry for the multi-million dollar industries that normally produce this digital entertainment. A video game simply should not be $60, or even $50. I don't care how large or epic the game is, it is still just digital information on a disk. And now they're trying to nickel and dime us even more by not including the whole game at launch, and instead throwing out extra "downloadable content." So many games, assuming you buy new, you are really spending $60 + another $10-$20 for the entire game. Screw that! And CDs, especially in this day and age, should cost nowhere near $15 or even $10. You want people to buy your product? Create greater incentive. Add features that can't be downloaded like album art. If a particular band I liked released a CD for $6, chalked full of pretty and detailed album art, band bumper stickers, whatever, I would certainly buy it, and I bet many others would do the same.
Third, even with my pirating, I'm pretty sure I still spend far more money on movies, music, and games, than the average person. I still go to see movies, I buy band shirts, I go to concerts, and I still buy PLENTY of videogames and gaming hardware.
So yeah, this turned out much longer than I anticipated, I didn't realize I had that much to say about this issue, who knew :/
