But they have a "moral model", which is to present copyright itself as a moral proposition. Everything about why it is hard for us to stop the never-ending creation of new laws and international treaties that attack freedoms of computer use and internet use is due to this moral model.
It follows that empirical studies proving the "harmlessness" of piracy are largely irrelevant.
The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and
useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the
exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Somewhere along the way, people began to confuse the concept of promoting-artistic-progress with ensuring-people-can-make-millions-of-dollars. These are two unrelated things. The success of some company's (or some artist's) business model has nothing to do with the progress of the arts in general. So I agree with you: the amount of monetary "damage" caused by piracy is entirely irrelevant.
What really matters is the moral argument that piracy equates to theft, or that piracy hinders artistic progress. I don't think it does. But if anyone disagrees, I'd love to hear your argument here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3577454
Also, copyright is world-wide, so what it says in the US Constitution isn't all that interesting to anyone not in the US.
And when I say "irrelevant", I mean it is irrelevant to public debate. The copyright industry's side of the debate about copyright enforcement is mostly the following, based on what I called the "moral model":
* We created something * We own what we created * Someone is stealing it
This message can just be repeated over and over and over again. Someone's report that internet piracy might not reduce cinema takings completely fails to address the above moral claim.
So the report can be ignored, and the moral claim can be repeated again. And again.
* We created something * We own what we created * Someone is stealing it
So when they tell the public, "It's stealing!", that's nothing but marketing. When the chips are down and they're standing in court, they argue based on legal precedent. I don't think we can argue against them on any other grounds.