[mikeash]

Well, let's look at the various outcomes. There are, I think, three possible actions to consider: A) taking and paying B) taking and not paying C) not taking.

For a restaurant, we get: A) restaurant benefits B) restaurant loses C) restaurant suffers no effect either way.

For piracy, we get: A) creator benefits B) creator suffers no effect either way C) creator suffers no effect either way.

Consider what happens if I organize a thousand people to carry out (B) on something. If it's a restaurant, this could easily drive them out of business. If it's a creator of copyrighted content, they continue with their business as usual.

Note: I'm not saying that (B) is good, or acceptable, or justified, or should be legal, or anything like that, when it comes to copyright infringement. I'm just saying that the two scenarios entail significantly different consequences, and should not be treated as the same thing. Treating them as the same doesn't help the discussion at all: it simply causes people who agree with you to nod their heads, and people who disagree to think you're being disingenuous.

[biot]

There's a common flaw in this line of argument. In your (B) example, you need to do one more level of analysis:

   i) Would have paid if it were the only option, but would rather get 
      something for nothing
  ii) Would not have paid under any circumstances

Assign probabilities to each of those events and now you know the probability of harm to the creator. Option (i) could be low, but it is not a 0% probability which means that for a sufficiently large sample size the (B) scenario does cause the creator to suffer.

[bmelton]

If piracy takes root as something that people 'should' do, then B) in your piracy example leads to the same outcome as B) in your restaurant example.

It deprives them of any income, and removes the incentive and ability for them to produce further content as a means of living in the future.

That deprives all of their future contributions and damages the commons. In summation, at scale, the outcome for both B) scenarios IS the same, and if it is at scale, then there must be an effect not at scale, whether or not you refuse to accept it.

[mikeash]

(B) at scale only leads to the same outcome if a substantial number are converted from (A). If people are only converted from (C) then the outcomes are completely different.

In short, the effect of piracy depends entirely on whether the pirates are potential customers. The effect of dine-and-dash does not depend on that. This is, I believe, an extremely significant difference.