That only works if you contend that every single person who pirated something would not have purchased the thing otherwise. I'm pretty sure that's wrong in the same way that saying every single pirated copy of something results in lost revenue (as the MPAA and RIAA contend.) It might not be as wrong, but it's still wrong.

And while there are plenty of studies that suggest piracy might help sales, there are also plenty that suggest that it does not:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=does-digit...

In fact, while the issue is plenty debatable I'd say that most of the evidence comes down on the side of "yes, piracy hurts sales, just no where near as much as the MPAA would have you think." (Though even the article above suggests that piracy wouldn't be as much of an issue if movies were released worldwide simultaneously.)

Furthermore, "hurting the creators" needn't necessarily be financial. There are many, many artists, programmers, etc. -- not big publishers, but creators -- who hate piracy with a passion. They often feel under assault by Internet companies the way that people here feel under assault by the MPAA. I think they're misguided, but it's irresponsible to just say "fuck you, this doesn't hurt."

So no, "hurting the creators" is not false, probably not financially and certainly not ethically (you're doing something with their work they don't want.) It's valid to say that the creators have to suck it up and adapt, and that many of them won't be able to make money in the ways they did before. But they are getting hurt.