word. unlicensed content delivery platforms still vastly superior in terms of quality and depth of content after over a decade and billions spent by netflix, hulu, etc. if you really want people to pay for a product you should offer better quality than the people who give it away.
The quality may be better, but can you stream pirated content on, say, an iPad app or on a pre-installed TV app? Netflix and other legal providers seem to have a real value proposition versus illegal providers, but I'll admit it's been several years since I've taken any interest in piracy.
How can you know that hyperdunc is a "pirate"? How can you know that hyperdunc advocates for further "piracy"? His argument is that there is a word for copyright infringement and the word clearly isn't theft or piracy.
A sentinent like "pirates will always find a way to rationalize theft" is unreasonably dismissive and perhaps shaped to protect an ideological position.
This is a question of semantics. You're trying to coopt the gravitas of the word "theft". But theft is the illegal removal of a (physical) item, not copying an item while leaving the original as it is.