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Online music piracy became commonplace precisely because no one ever had any ethical concerns about it. Taping albums, radio, videocassettes, television programs, and the like had been commonplace since consumer grade technology permitted it. No one in the '90s had any ethical concerns about taping The Wizard of Oz off of television so your kids could watch it whenever they wanted to. Hell, when I bought CDs in high school my own parents would sigh and tell me I shouldn't be spending money on something I could download off the internet. The reason kids these days take a view of copyright infringement that's more in line with the actual law is because the media environment makes it cheap and easy to avoid resorting to piracy. Ironically, this environment owes its entire existence to the piracy of the early '00s; the music industry would prefer the 20th Century way of doing business, and they only switched to streaming after they were effectively forced to (actually well past the point when they were forced to). If streaming services disappeared and the only way to legally have unlimited access to the latest pop hit was to pay $35 for a CD with 12 fixed songs, most of which you have no immediate interest in, the younger generation's attitudes toward piracy would change in a heartbeat.
Even today, no one really pays too much attention to the letter of the law when it comes to copyright infringement. The people who would tsk tsk you for pirating a movie off of an illegal stream because you didn't want to pay for it probably wouldn't be too concerned about whether your use of Dilbert's picture in a presentation for work was properly licensed, or whether their local bar was signed up with ASCAP and BMI so some guy at open mic night can play "Midnight at the Oasis" in public. Hell, Netflix recently announced plans to crack down on sharing accounts, which is both widespread and technically illegal.
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