i usually rent from a local library and use DVDFab & Handbrake/x264 to encode from scratch with excellent settings. Most of the stuff on torrent is lousy quality that's optimized for size first. The way I see it, i already pay huge property taxes that more than covers the few select movies i rip. sometimes i already own the DVD (720p) version but not the blu ray (1080p).
I can't comprehend how one would arrive at that reasoning.
definitely some mental gymnastics are required. the difference between owning and renting is largely inconsequential. i rarely watch the stuff i own, and since i can rent it for free from a library, i would never buy it. i just save myself a library trip the one time in 2 years that i want to watch it.
i guess i have little sympathy for ever-expanding media conglomerates, like Comcast-NBCUniversal, given how they've treated me as their loyal customer/prisoner for the past decade. i do pay for content from smaller studios, and as i said, most of the stuff i rip is older and i already own in crappier resolution on dvd.