While I agree with your distaste, I hope you remain wary. Their incompetence seems to have the outcome of enriching them and their sponsors. Can you still attribute incompetence when they are benefitting?

Regarding dictatorship, the conservatives right now are setting up a lot of things like anti-protest laws that seem toothless because they haven't been used to the fullest extent, but the groundwork is there. It won't take long (likely one election cycle) and I'm sure we'll see them use it in the fullest extent.

Cool, then don't.

People using "honesty" as a veneer to be brutal aren't the same as people that are genuinely honest.

By your own definition, if you TAKE it, you stole it. Nothing is taken.

Forgery is a specific type of fraud where the copy is presented as an original. I'd say it's closer, but it's definitely not a 1:1 accurate comparison

How does seeding work in this case?

And the harm is in no way different from someone not buying the game because they aren't interested in the game.

Then are consumers also victim to people who refuse to buy the game because they are simply not interested? The mechanism is the same.

Piracy is victimless, as it doesn't remove something from the creator. Taking something away would make them a victim. Me not buying a game and not engaging at all with it is the same as not buying a game but still playing it.

You assume every piece of pirated media would otherwise be bought, this is not true at all.

They haven't blocked me so I guess they're ok with it.

Nobody forces me, but I choose to. Just like I choose not to watch the ads.

I tend to use https://theaudiobookbay.se/

And I get to do what I want with my property. I don't want ads on my screen, so I block them.