That is not true. That person who made a legal copy wasn't a customer in the first place, because he is not going to pay $50, $100 or whatever amount per month Netflix comes up with.
Netflix simply priced themselves out of the market for that customer and the only way he is interested to watch it is by making a digital copy.
And nothing is lost because the product remains 100% in tact by making a digital copy so nothing is lost at all.
And I need to remind you that in various countries, this is all legal. So they are not "common thieves" at all as they already indirectly paid for it by taxes.
No perfect world of piracy exists that you’re describing, so this has definitely transformed into a philosophical discussion. Even if nothing is lost to the owner, why would it be “ok” for someone to copy something that they don’t have a right to?
Who would be the gatekeeper in your hypothetical perfect pirate world, the pirates self-police when their USD reaches their willingness to pay for the content?
Piracy doesn’t have to be theft for it to be immoral or a crime.
Nonetheless, I believe something is lost to the owner when a copy is made. Even in your perfect world where the hypothetical “only interested to watch it is by making a digital copy” and where they watch it alone in the closet with headphones on, and safeguard the deletion to prevent further sharing to someone not so diligent in their piracy. (Also, how would this hypothetical pirate even know whether or not it was worth 0$ or 100$ before they watched it?) Market forces are at play, the willingness to pay $50 or $100 (or 7$) is reduced when piracy is an option. And, the opportunity for a lower priced competitor to produce and sell similar watchable content but lower quality to the pirate say $0.01 a year, is likewise forced out. There’s also the issue of time and effort put into writing and producing the watchable content by writers, actors, and producers that now see their hard worked product in the hands of someone who didn’t pay for it. Imagine you spent your weekend outlining, organizing, refining and writing a term paper, and your roommate just copied it verbatim, wouldn’t that feel wrong? You didn’t lose anything, you’d never be paid for it, but your roommate gained off your hard work.
If everyone behaved this way without contradiction it would be ruinous. You should respect the property rights of other’s, even intellectual property rights. If you don’t like it, why don’t you make and produce your own content?
You are being purposefully pedantic and evasive. Where is a "piracy tax" paid? What country and how is it paid to Netflix or any other content creator? Is the mythical tax also paid to music creators who have CDs or sound files copied instead of purchased?
Second, do you not agree that lost subscriptions cost content creators income and if content creators are not paid then they cannot pay employees?
You purposefully nit pick sound bites but don't meaningfully address the issue.
If I had to guess there’s a life story behind his pro-pirate position that would explain quite a bit about the lack of integrity. And if I had to take a second guess, we’d both regret spending our time writing responses.