I'm not hurting them - I would never have bought what they are selling. I'm just letting them benefit me, and thus increasing the level of happiness in this world.
>you would simply stop consuming all of these things //
If he continues to consume those things at the same level (ie spends the same amount of money on them) then the argument still stands IMO.
I've seen articles saying that those who download a lot are often also ones who consume at higher levels; a movie buff can spend a huge amount of income on movies and still torrent.
Removing the torrenting won't necessarily increase the amount spent, indeed it could decrease it under models that come readily to mind.
Most, yes. We would still have YouTube, though. Actually, I bought 1 CD this year, Parov Stelar's Princess, that I would have bought regardless, but that's about it.
Even if you would stop, I don't think most pirates would. They'd probably consume less, and be a lot more discriminating, but I do think they would buy.
