Here's a rough summary of my philosophy:
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Intellectual property as it is typically defined and legally defended is a self-contradictory concept.
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IP in an ideal world would protect creators from fraud, (others falsely claiming credit for their work.) And would ensure fair payment distribution to the artist and workers directly involved, (not allow giant multi-billion dollar corpos to control and profit off massive swaths of IP).
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You always have the right to do with your copy of media, whatever you want. Remix, trade, critique, promote, copy, etc.
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It is always preferable to pirate vs funding corpos.
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Pay for products that respect you, don't pay to be abused or to help abuse others.
I always try to pay the artist and those actually involved directly.
As for the sound techs, producers, etc that work on a project, most of them are already receiving a salary/wages for their time. So I disagree with Louis that pirating media generally hurts those folks.
The artist usually has some conditional debt where the record label requires them to cover some portion of the production costs from sales before they start actually making money. This is frequently a very exploitative arrangement that favors the studio and label. (See points 4 & 5)
There is no perfect solution. If the artist is small enough, direct sales of merch and media is the best option. This is what I try to do as much as possible.
I think another point is that art is fundamentally not a commodity, or at least, shouldn't be treated as such. Capitalism corrupts everything it touches, art is no exception. Artists who are truly passionate about their craft will create no matter what, as evidenced by the far larger portion of "starving" artists in the world vs wealthy ones.
I hate that music, film, paintings, and such are now treated as portfolios of investments by billion dollar corpos and rich fat cats who don't give a shit about the purpose of art and just want to get rich.
Pay for products and services that respect you. Don't pay to support abusive and exploitative industries if you can avoid it. Support genuine artists. Everything will always be fuzzy, make your best call. Copying is not theft. Corpos are scum.