It’s always really bizarre to me how pirates justify stealing creative works as some sort of culture.
The record companies were/are awful, for sure, but the solution is to support musicians directly then, not come up with elaborate justifications for your theft. I imagine most of this is done by people with secure professions that don’t worry about getting paid for their work.
When it comes to music and other art forms, the primary concern should be the creator. Not people that want to get stuff for free. And I can assure you: musicians would like to get paid for their work, and they don’t think it’s cool or fun that people just steal their stuff. The occasional super-successful artist being pro-piracy is not representative.
If there was a mainstream way of supporting artists directly and having permanent ownership of music, piracy would be punching down and could possibly be a taboo practice. But as the current order stands, its punching up and fucking the suits more than artists and I really like that.
Bandcamp? Direct sales on their website?
I can understand the piracy argument 25 years ago, when these didn't exist. But at this point, I think there are plenty of ways to directly support artists.