So they steal them. Sometimes you need to do what you need to do in order to survive. I'm just saying you shouldn't try to argue that it's "not stealing" if you decide the reward is greater than the risk, or the net benefit exceeds the transgression.
It's obviously not exactly the same as stealing, since you are only denying the person one very specific use of their "property" (which only recently has been artificially made property, through copyright laws). That specific use you are denying them is not the right of sale even, but the right of a monopoly on distribution. Of course, if it starts materially affecting the person's capacity to live a reasonable lifestyle, then it becomes a different moral issue, and there is still a moral judgment to be made regardless, but that is not the same thing at all as conflating unauthorized copying, which widens possession in a way that could potentially have averse effects, and the absolute of theft, which changes it in a zero sum way, and necessarily has averse effects.
As one example, I know a guy who pays for online streaming subscriptions, but still pirates to not be forced through a crappy experience because people are attempting to extract the last penny and get as rich as possible through spying and ads, tiers of resolution, device restrictions, etc. I see no reason why there is any moral issue with bypassing their chosen distribution monopoly, especially because they are not starving. I strongly disagree with the tenet that extreme capitalistic gain is a right, and thus cannot consider intellectual property rights as such an absolute. Now, if one is to download something that someone earning a modest living made, and which has a real material impact on them providing for a reasonably comfortable life for themselves and their family, personally I consider that a problem, but that is quite rare (not least of all because smaller content producers are usually being exploited and making very little from distribution). It's not the likely case even with just a modicum of awareness in what and when you decide to download something.
> Inability to earn adequate living: indeed just 57% of full-time published authors derived 100% of their individual income from writing-related work in 2017, and much of that writing income comes from activities such as speaking engagements, the teaching of writing, editing or translating the works of other authors, ghostwriting, etc. rather from book advances and royalties. Only 21% of full-time published authors derived 100% of their individual income from book-related income.
In terms of income:
> Median incomes of all published authors who were surveyed—including part-time, full-time, traditionally published, self-published, and hybrid-published authors—for all writing-related activities[1] was $6,080, down 3% from four years ago. This is down from a $10,500 median income in 2009 according the Authors Guild’s last survey[2]. Worse still, the median income for all published authors based solely on book-related activities[3] fell from $3,900 to $3,100, down 21%, while full-time traditionally published authors earned $12,400.
So effectively, not paying for a book has a high likelihood of taking a decent percentage of a writers income.
Like I said, make an educated decision. However, the largest reason that authors make so little is that the publishing houses overwhelmingly give them next to nothing. So no, downloads are not the problem. Anecdotally, I have never had an author not send me a digital copy of a book I requested from them (generally because they were hard to get). At the same time, it is pretty obvious which authors are smaller and would thus fall into the category of "people to look out for" I indicated in my first post. And again, I am not here advocating for downloading, simply pointing out that it is quite different than strict theft (which is pretty obvious), and those who claim otherwise, by using a simplistic argument, lose a large part of their audience immediately.
