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Who should they be paid by, then, if not the people who want access to that work?
Remove all your preconceptions about distributors and production studios and whatever other justifications you've used to condone piracy. At what point is it ok to not pay for an artists work? Is it ok if they're just a single person and you're taking it from them without paying? Is it ok if they work for a studio and you take it without paying the studio? Or is it ok if Amazon or someone else paid to have it made and is distributing and marketing it? What's the cut-off where it's ok and where people do deserve to get paid vs. where they don't deserve to get paid?
I'm not taking anything from them, they spend their time on the work and then relinquish the product of that work at the time and price of their choosing. By the time that work gets to me, the artist will have extracted a price for the work and whoever received it from them would have paid it. An creator doesn't possess the less by their work being copied.
Remove all your preconceptions about distributors and production studios and whatever other justifications you’ve used to condone piracy. At what point is it ok to not pay for an artists work? Is it ok if they’re just a single person and you’re taking it from them without paying? Is it ok if they work for a studio and you take it without paying the studio? Or is it ok if Amazon or someone else paid to have it made and is distributing and marketing it? What’s the cut-off where it’s ok and where people do deserve to get paid vs. where they don’t deserve to get paid?
Copying is not taking. Copying is not taking. Copying is not taking.
Artists starve and loose their houses now, in this system, even absent any piracy. Who is to blame for that injustice? Is art only valuable if it can be profited from? Let's not pretend that the market has ever meant to favor artists. What harm has been done to the Da Vinci by my viewing the Mona Lisa from online, if I sneak into a ballet at intermission that I couldn't afford otherwise? What harm has been done to a baker if I take a loaf of bread from their trash?
We encourage waste and exclusion because our system depends on it, not because it's ethical or justified.
Who should they be paid by, then, if not the people who want access to that work?
We all should pay for it. We produce gratuitous surplus, we can provide the means of living to everyone without concern for exchanging it for labor. Art has always been a product of surplus time, even before agriculture. That work has always had value, and it has always been done freely. We should be celebrating the marvel of technology that allows infinite access to all our creative work, not crippling it with legal battles and accusations of theft.
they spend their time on the work and then relinquish the product of that work at the time and price of their choosing
...to the people who have paid for that work.
An creator doesn't possess the less by their work being copied.
Yes, they do. Otherwise, you'd have to pay for it. Without paying for it, you would't be able to consume it.
Copying is not taking.
The media itself is not what's being stolen. It's the income being stolen by ingesting/consuming the media. If you don't pay for it, you don't consume it unless you steal it.
Is art only valuable if it can be profited from?
I have never made that argument nor that point.
What harm has been done to a baker if I take a loaf of bread from their trash?
You didn't pay for a loaf of bread. This is disingenuous anyways because bakers bake their goods in order to get paid for them.
system depends on it, not because it's ethical or justified.
An entirely different argument than what I'm making. A different system that what we live in doesn't exist currently so that entire argument is meaningless and piracy doesn't somehow magically bring about that other system.
We produce gratuitous surplus, we can provide the means of living to everyone without concern for exchanging it for labor.
Again with the fantasy. I agree with your fantasy. I would love that. We don't live in a world where people don't need money to survive. Full stop.
An creator doesn't possess the less by their work being copied.
Yes, they do. Otherwise, you'd have to pay for it. Without paying for it, you would't be able to consume it.
This is false. "Pay for it" or "Pirate it" are not the only 2 options available.
This is false. "Pay for it" or "Pirate it" are not the only 2 options available.
What are the other options then?
Not to consume it at all, obviously.
Your measurement for converting potential revenue into loss hinges on those being the only 2 options.
I have pointed that out as a possibility. Not consuming it at all, though, is not theft precisely because the person isn't consuming it.
In which case piracy only accounts for lost revenue if and only if the pirate would have 100%, guaranteed, purchased the content if a pirates copy was not available. So your calculation does not work.
if a pirates copy was not available.
This is exactly why my calculation does work. If a pirated copy was not available, they wouldn't be able to consume the media without paying for it.
But they also wouldn't have to pay for it. Which is the only way your calculation would work.
Again with the fantasy.
It isn't fantasy, we have social programs now, UBI exists now, 4 hour and reduced working hours are happening now.
You are the one insisting that compensation must come from exclusive ownership and consumption, and I've made a very realistic case for an alternative. Dismissing it as fantasy does nothing to prove otherwise.