The people I know who go through the trouble of pirating and downloading vast libraries of music are all musicians themselves, or at the very least total music nerds. They don’t want to lose access to their stuff, plus if they ever need to import audio into a DAW, DRM is a no-go. They are the same people who spend large amounts of money on vinyls, and support smaller independent artists through concerts, merch and (back in the day) CDs.

It used to be more mixed, but today, piracy is often the only option to ”own” any media at all.

> piracy is often the only option to ”own” any media at all.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding something here, but I find that nowadays the process of buying high-quality, DRM-free MP3 music is as simple and straightforward as it can be: you purchase the files (on Bandcamp, Amazon, Apple Music, etc.), download them legally, and then physically own them forever.

By the way, when purchasing through Bandcamp, 80+% goes to the artist (https://bandcamp.com/fair_trade_music_policy). So not only do you own the music, but you also make sure the artist is properly paid for their work.

The musicians I know are the most inclined to actually pay for music (NOT through Spotify) and buy merch.