The argument that you’re not stealing something physical is an old, tired, immature, and naive narrative that seems willfully ignorant of the reality that copyright law is protecting the consumption of copies, it’s about protecting the initial investment and the business model, not the cost of production of individual copies. You actually are hurting the artists by consuming a copy without their permission, because the transaction they’ve offered is to trade your viewing of the movie for a small amount of money. The word “stealing” is defined to include taking something without permission, and does not depend on whether they get deprived of the thing you take.

You’ve made several snarky and strawman replies about money, but ignored the actual point I made; the fact that copyright laws do not depend or discriminate based on profits. This is a fact, not a debate. Your opinion about any given studio’s claimed losses is completely irrelevant to the question of whether you should be allowed to break the law.

> My job does not rely on handing copies of our product’s binaries to people if they pinky promise they’ll only use it in a way we approve of though.

Yes it does. You’re wrong. Does your product’s use come with a EULA? Does your company have any security? Does your product get paid for? Are you putting your code in the public domain? If you write code, your code is covered by copyright law, and you have both legal and technical mechanisms in place to protect people from taking your code and your product for themselves without your company’s permission. You are doing the same things as DRM, you’re being hypocritical.

> I'm not asking anyone to give anything away for free.

Then I’ve gotten the wrong impression, please clarify what you mean. You’ve argued above that you (and everyone) should be able to watch movies for free because they’re easy to duplicate and they are cultural assets. What are you asking for then?