Art school film projects are created to satisfy a class requirements -- few people want the linked list implementation some freshman CS student wrote.  That being said, piracy is often asserted as occurring by those who intend to financially exploit their output, a film school student who achieved a wider audience would most likely be ecstatic if their work was "pirated" and achieved wide exposure.  However, there's little demand for film school student work because it's not marketed.  And there's nothing saying that just because something is marketed (or has a big marketing budget), has wide exposure, there is demand for it means that it's actually good, valuable and worth having been created.  Admittedly, that can't even be measured until consumption occurs and people experience it, which may just mean that pre-paying for content creation before having a chance to judge if it's worth it having been created or not (baring reputation of the creator) ends up financing the wrongs things -- we've all been in the situation of having paid $10 to see a movie that's barely worth 50 cents.  Not all creative output needs to be blockbusters to be considered high worth.