I recently spent a good amount of money on a running jacket. I could have spent less money and bought a moderately priced running jacket or I could have gone to the Good Will store and gotten one almost for free. The one I bought is far superior to the free one and decidedly better than the middle of the road one.

When people talk about pirated content, they are usually talking about music and movies. You can find free music, legally, all over the internet. (shameless self promotion) -- Here -- but it's not going to be the big named artists. You can also stream movies for free on sites like Hulu, YouTube etc --but it's usually not the latest or best movies.

Places do exist where you can pay a small fee to download select movies/music for a moderate fee, NetFlix for example -- but they may not have exactly what you like. So you rationalize that steeling is a necessity, when in fact you have a number of avenues to get music or movies at a moderate price or even free... but you want the best! You're entitled to it.

How is that any different than stealing the expensive running jacket? In both cases other options existed and in both cases the item purchased or stolen is not a necessity. -Far from it.

Is the argument, "it's inevitable so we might as well embrace it"? -That's a weak argument.