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by chkpt 4521 days ago
The fallacy underlying the claim that piracy hurts artists is that, but for that pirated copy, the artist would have sold that copy at full price.
1 comments

The fallacy underlying your claim is assuming a minority of the people who were directed to a pirated copy still wouldn't buy the song, if they weren't able to pirate it.
What if someone searches for "Avatar torrent" or "Avatar free download". Shoudn't Google give them those results that are most relevant to the query made? Why should Google offer them a link to Ultraviolet.com or whatever, if the user searched for Avatar torrent?
I can't see how what you are asking is related to what I wrote.

I am not looking for a pointless, chaotic debate. I made a very clear point - assuming none of the people who downloaded the song will buy it, if the first link wasn't to megaupload or w/e is equally stupid to assuming everyone who downloaded the song will buy it.

Even if 0.1% of the downloaders (one in a thousand!) would have otherwise bought what they pirated, that is 8 or 9 figures in lost revenue.