Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

If piracy were legal (just the download for personal use, not redistribution), let's pretend for a second. I bet the majority of people wouldn't even be here asking these questions.

"If it's legal then why not". That's how many people think. However the morality aspects still stand and shouldn't be skwed by the legal aspect. When you made the example of pirating indie games, if piracy is legal, people would legally download those games from third party sources, even the people who wouldn't do it if piracy were illegal (like it is in reality).

At that point it'll become some sort of "if I can afford it I will support the studio and buy the game, if I can't I will get it for free because people won't think I'm stealing regardless". Kind of like a donate if you can sort of system some software developers have in place.

In reality nothing prevents the same people from thinking that way right now. It's just the stigma behind pirating even those indie games which is still skewed and dependant by the legal aspect of the situation.

The truth about digital products is that if someone doesn't want to pay for something they won't pay regardless and it doesn't rob anyone else from being able to purchase and downloade the same exact content the legit way. The mistake is seeing pirates as otherwise potential paying customers if piracy wasn't an option.