The quality may be better, but can you stream pirated content on, say, an iPad app or on a pre-installed TV app? Netflix and other legal providers seem to have a real value proposition versus illegal providers, but I'll admit it's been several years since I've taken any interest in piracy.

A sentinent like "pirates will always find a way to rationalize theft" is unreasonably dismissive and perhaps shaped to protect an ideological position.

This is a question of semantics. You're trying to coopt the gravitas of the word "theft". But theft is the illegal removal of a (physical) item, not copying an item while leaving the original as it is.

How can you know that hyperdunc is a "pirate"? How can you know that hyperdunc advocates for further "piracy"? His argument is that there is a word for copyright infringement and the word clearly isn't theft or piracy.