I said materially different. You've pointed out ways they are different that have no bearing on my point and aren't relevant to it. You've mostly focused on the legal aspects of copyright infringement vs. physical theft which has nothing to do with my argument.

And now you've done it again. You're arguing the legality of copyright infringement and how it differs from physical theft which has no bearing on my position.

But what you're ignoring is the idea of whether or not they would have bought instead of pirating.

I'm not ignoring it. I've literally stated the argument against that statement several times - if they didn't buy it, they couldn't consume it if piracy didn't exist.

only consumed the material because it was free

It wasn't free. That's why it's stealing.

The reality is that most of the content people pirate is not content they would have paid for,

Then they shouldn't be able to consume it! There's no issue if they wouldn't have paid for it if they don't consume it. The whole argument that they wouldn't have bought it becomes bullshit as soon as they do consume it because, without piracy, they would not have been able to consume it.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago

I'm not arguing the legality of it. I'm arguing the key definitions. Said definitions line up with law, because the law was established hundreds of years ago. Your definition is new and false. For some reason, you cannot accept that.

if they didn’t buy it, they couldn’t consume it if piracy didn’t exist.

Would vs could. You're conflating the two. If they didn't buy it, and piracy was not an option, they most likely would not have consumed it. They most likely would not have paid you for it.

A pirated copy is not equal to a sale. If piracy was not an option, you wouldn't have had many more sales.

You keep touting this principle of yours as if it were fact. Frankly, you should accept that your business was a flop and move on, rather than blame people who did not want to pay you for your own failure.