1. A copyright owner can test this easily by offering a discount.
2. Because they are getting significantly bigger value out of it. Because they know ahead of time they want more of this type of content to be produced. Because they have more disposable funds. Because it is available in their country legally. Because their streaming package already includes it. Because their cable package already includes it... Need I continue?
Again, you are conflating is it OK not to pay with any loss of profit: they are not the same even if there is correlation.
Nobody loses any money if you spill profanities at someone, but it's still not OK (even though it might not be illegal either).
Legallity and morality are not always in sync even if we try to keep one reflect the other. I am surprised this is even a discussion point.
> Because they are getting significantly bigger value out of it. Because they know ahead of time they want more of this type of content to be produced. Because they have more disposable funds.
Those are reasons that someone might choose to pay. These are also the same reasons why one might want to donate to charity or to non-profit/public media (PBS, NPR in the USA). In other words, they're a voluntary patron of the arts. And there's nothing wrong with that, when the organizations are non-profit/public or charitable. In fact, I think we'd all encourage it.
However, not every media organization is a non-profit/public operation or a charity. Those who are made a choice to be that. Those who didn't--well, they chose to remain for profit.
The point is that we, as individuals, do not get to override the choice of whether a publisher is for profit or non-profit by taking the law into our own hands--just like I don't get to turn your back yard into a public park when you're not using it. After all, you're not using it, right?
You and others keep saying, "no loss in revenue, no harm done." (Just like, "no loss of use of your back yard, no harm done.") But that's not the point. It's about infringing on others' rights.
> you are conflating is it OK not to pay with any loss of profit: they are not the same even if there is correlation.
This is just silly: Where does the profit come from if nobody pays? Again: if you don't have to pay, it must follow that nobody should have to pay. If you disagree with that, then who gets to choose who pays and who doesn't? You? No; that's for the law to decide. That's how democracy works.
Some would argue that the deaths by covid are the same as every year deaths by other pulmonary infectious diseases. I've read a ton of books and analysis done by statisticians. So I doubt we should have went crazy like we did.
Interesting. Just looked into it and it seems like there are some researchers who estimate the lockdowns saved a lot of lives, but the economic toll and subsequent deaths from this toll may not have been worth it (as you mentioned). But they also said that now, "we have more tools to battle the virus. Vaccines and therapeutics are available, as are other mitigation measures." Implying we wouldn't have to do lockdowns in future pandemics.
So yeah, I do see your point in the lockdowns were probably unnecessary, but as others have mentioned, pandemics were new to the US at the time, and we didn't have the knowledge and procedures on how to best deal with it. Yeah, we did probably go overboard, but what happened is understandable given how deadly Covid was.
We know now that social distancing and masks (for those that are willing) would probably have been enough, as other countries used to pandemics already know, like South Korea.
