&#62; <i>Unfortunately in digital age, a consumer can get the product by illegal means even if they can't afford it and producer doesn't really have a way to stop this illegal behavior.</i><p>That may be. But if the consumer consumes the product without paying because they couldn't afford it in the first place, can you really say that you lost money on that? If they didn't have the money to buy it in the first place, how could they have given you money for it if piracy wasn't an option?<p>The <i>real</i> cause of piracy (other than availability) is the over-saturation of media markets that we have. Example: If I want to buy a new video game for $60, that's maybe 4 or 5 CDs that I can't buy, so I download those CDs instead.<p>I know that some people will call it naive, but we live in a society where we are bombarded by marketing in which everyone tries to shout the loudest or find the best way to subtly convince you that you <i>need</i> their product (i.e. you won't be cool unless you have X). But we are now in a marketplace where the consumer can choose to pay for X and pirate Y instead of just deciding to (exclusively) buy X or Y. So it comes down to this: If everyone is able to convince me that their product is a necessity, then I'll end up acquiring all of those products, but only some of them will be paid for.<p>Note: I'm using a hypothetical 'me/I' in this explantion.