Peoples grasp of these subjects are sadly ill proportionate, and greatly misguided to such an extent that the residual damages of these laws are often not within the ideals people perceive. We perceive that one direction or another has the right ideal. The reality is both have neither the right nor the wrong ideal, but instead conflicting perceptions of how things work. The anti Piracy agenda, fails to understand that for every piece of media they sell, over 50% of their buyers first experienced the product through a secondary means by which they received it freely, which by in large fits into their concept of "Piracy". Be it "Piracy" via means of mass media acquisition, outright Theft from a retailer, a gift, or even some other means such as a Home movie service. They by in large purchased the product because they both (A) like the product, and more importantly (B) could afford the product for the price they purchased it.
Inversely, those who "Pirate media", do not actually "Pirate" media. The term Piracy has been loosely used to accommodate a wide variety of perceptible media induced crimes, many of which are completely within legal bounds, much akin to the common misuse of the word "Hacker", which BTW originally had nothing to do with web sites, so much as Investigation. "Piracy" by traditional terms of media misuse, was not too long ago a term meaning to Illegally Duplicate a good for financial gain. Thus, a Media Pirate, was a person who stole a product, duplicated it, and then sold it for profit and gain. Now, a person who downloads a movie, song, what have you, if they do not sell what they download, do they in turn effect the bottom line of the business? You may say yes, but the reality is, the price by which the business chooses to sell the good, in turn diminishes the need vs desire of the mass public's desire to purchase said good. Plus the average person who downloads a movie, if they liked the movie, they in turn often go out and buy the movie, or more often then not, wait till the price of the movie reaches a cost incentive that fits the amount they wish to pay such as the 5$ bin at their local store.
Thus the "Media pirate" who downloads the content, but does not sell the content they download, if they like the content, has a higher propensity to seek to purchase the content in question, when the price of the content reaches a level they feel is worth the expense. So the issue at hand, is not a mater of Illegal misuse vs. Cost, so much as its perception on intent, vs restriction of available content, and the means by which business all too often create false excuses as to why they have lost business. Be it the economy, Piracy, or a billion and one mitigating factors. The truth of the matter is as always, If you set your price for a product too high, people will find other means to entertain themselves, be it waiting till the price of your product lowers to a level they can afford, finding another product that gives them more "Bang for their buck", or seeking other resources to achieve their desired source of entertainment. In short, the higher you set a price, the less people will buy it.