[vanderZwan]

A lot of early studies on piracy suggested that it actually promotes sales more than it removes them. It's just that this is mainly on the side of the less famous musicians, artists, etc, because it gives them more reach (in the case of music people were less likely to try out their stuff if they only had a limited budget to buy records and little opportunity to listen to albums beforehand). It's mainly the biggest mainstream acts that see reduced sales.

Personally I don't have much of an issue with that. Of course, this was before streaming was a thing so who knows if the effects of piracy on sales have shifted again as a result of that.

And then there is of course the angle that we're artificially limiting supply of digital goods anyway, but that's an entirely different can of worms.

[thrdbndndn]

The flip side of this is that sometimes copyright owner may not even care about sales, they simply don't want people to get their work for free.

Of course it's almost never the case for large companies which are profit driven, but I once saw an indie Japanese artist said things similar to (when reacting to his work being pirated) that (paraphrasing) "I didn't care if it helps promote my work or the fact I won't lose sales anyway (since I don't sell my work overseas); I just found it's not fair for people who actually paid".

I personally is still on the fence, but his comment did make me think.