Originally Posted by PornMD

Without the creators of said content, consumers wouldn't be able to enjoy it, and you are clearly only a consumer looking at the now and not a creator. Perhaps if you were a creator you'd be at the very least sympathetic to what creators have to go through to avoid their content becoming worthless through piracy.

Consumers not paying for the content of the creators when it is up to them to pay for it (i.e. not radio where advertisement money is in play) is NEVER going to benefit the creators and is only going to devalue their work to the point when they much stop creating...I don't care what kind of study you want to throw out there to prove otherwise. You are trying to say that piracy spreads awareness of the content for more people that might pay for it, except you have no clue how many people who pirate the stuff would have bought it if they couldn't pirate it. Sure, there's a significant percentage of people who wouldn't have, but definitely nowhere near all, and ultimately people who pay for it see what pirates are doing and get enticed into doing the same when they see people getting stuff for free with no downside whatsoever.

Perhaps in the 24th century when money is non-existent and people can thus create simply to create, Picard and the crew will look back on these funny little GFY conversations laughing at the unnecessary intricacies of life that money creates, but we're not there yet.