It’s not a claim I’ve made. If you haven’t paid for something you’ve used or ingested, you deprived the creator of income. That’s a fact. And the argument about profits is a straw man because that’s not the same thing. People who ingest media talk about it and that convinces others to ingest it. Whether people who pirate content talk about it is irrelevant to the fact that they stole income from the creator to watch it in the first place.
Secondly, no one is arguing that it’s immoral because it’s illegal. That’s also a straw man. I’m arguing it’s immoral because you’re entitling yourself to the fruits of someone’s labor and creativity without holding up your end of the social contract.
Which there is no evidence of ever happening
Bullshit. The entire premise of piracy is ingesting something you didn’t pay for. There is literally a 100% correlation of evidence because, otherwise, piracy wouldn’t be an idea.
And I don’t know what a straw man is? You’re literally arguing against a point that I’ve never made. I have pirated content. I’m not claiming any high ground here. I just wish people would stop pretending like piracy isn’t theft when it is. You’re stealing income from a creator who is charging for their content. They’re not giving it away for free. You taking it without paying is depriving them of income and entitling you to get something that you didn’t trade in good faith.