Copyright sort of has the wrong idea. It's intended to prevent the copyright owner from missing out on the opportunity to capitalize on their work—similar to software patents (which are disgusting in their own right)—the rationale being the idea that if free copying ("piracy") were allowed to run rampant, the copyright owner would only ever make one sale.
However, this assumes that every pirate is the loss of a customer. This is certainly not the case, neither for me nor for most pirates out there. There are quite a few reasons people pirate software in practice, and almost none of them deprive the copyright owner of a potential customer. Either because the pirate never could have been a customer, or because they still are.
Here are some reasons I have either personally experienced, or commonly seen, for piracy:
- They can't pay at all. Say, kids without bank accounts. They may become customers later when they have money, but there's no use in campaigning against them now unless you want to make an enemy of them!
- They want to try before they buy. Some pirates buy software they like after pirating it. There's no point in buying something they won't use or like, especially if it's non-refundable. So they pirate first, as a sort of demo.
- They can't buy it even if they have money. For example, old media or retro games that are no longer being sold. There's no benefit to restricting people's freedoms here because there's no monetary gain to be lost because no sales are even being allowed.
- They can't own it with their money. Some people simply believe in owning the software they use and the content they watch. These people aren't going to care about streaming or subscriptions because it's viewed as a pointless expense. They'd be willing to pay more up front for real ownership, but if that's not available, they're not going to take a subscription.
- The buyer experience sucks. For example, streaming services or Adobe subscriptions. Many streaming services won't even do 1080p unless you use a smart TV. Adobe doesn't let you buy software to own anymore, only rent access to the latest offering, with whatever new changes their whims dictate. Microsoft has been moving in a similar direction for a while now.
- The price is too high. They aren't the intended customer and the copyright owner doesn't want their business anyway. No money lost by pirating.
- They don't want to give the copyright owner money. If not for piracy they still wouldn't consider the purchase.
But of course, there are still:
- The purchasing process is too annoying or too much effort compared to pirating. If pirating didn't exist as an alternative, maybe they would've had more patience, but even then, there's only so much bullshit that any one potential customer can handle.
- The desire to get something for free as the primary reason to pirate. This is typically how most copyright owners think of it, and yes, it does happen. It could be because of entitlement or because of a different philosophical belief (i.e. information should be free).
See Gabe Newell's "piracy is a service problem, not a money problem". I get all my games on Steam. I don't care about the DRM or the fact that I don't technically own the games. It's so easy, they treat me well as a customer, they respect my rights, so they're the natural choice for me. Not only that, they provide services which are genuinely helpful, such as P2P networking through their servers, which means anyone can host a multiplayer server and have their friends join. It is worth the money.
But I pirate shows I like once they're removed from Netflix or whatever other streaming service, because they're literally not available anymore. Literally, if there were a way for me to pay I would, but I can't pay money even if I want to. The copyright owner is basically telling me to go fuck myself. They shouldn't be allowed to do that and still prevent me from pirating the content that they won't sell me.
So yeah. Digital copyright is dumb.