The standard defense against internet piracy is that it doesn’t hurt anyone. This is often explained by the idea that physical objects are stolen, so the creators are free to continue selling their product. Thus no real harm is done. If we avoid arguments of intellectual property theft and copyright infringement, there is someone that is more directly harmed by internet piracy: pirates.
In a capitalist economy, product creation is driven by supply and demand. The greater the demand, the greater the supply. In this modern era, with the plethora of information available, demand is very easily quantified.
Because of this, past sales greatly impacts new creations. Your video game sold 8 million copies? You get a sequel, regardless of the original’s mixed reviews. Your game sells poorly? You don’t get a sequel (at least anytime soon) even with great reviews.
So how does this relate to piracy? While not every download equals one sale, every sale that is lost hurts the chances for a sequel. This includes more than just true sequels. An entire genre can be doomed by poor sales and piracy. Case in point: poor adventure games sales have limited its widespread support, while high-selling first person shooters cause continued development of a plethora of games every year.
Similar tales can be told of movies and music as well. As consumers, our most powerful tool is to speak with our dollars. We do this by buying the kinds of media we want to see created. Not buy stealing it.
Posted by Nick Bell 

