Thinking of piracy as a tax is not really a very good way to understand things.
Business is only able to sell copies at monopoly prices because the government gives them that ability through copyright law -- copyright is effectively a negative tax, a subsidy: the government gives businesses money the free market would not otherwise provide.
Since current copyright terms are almost certainly, in general, too large, piracy is working as a corrective: it brings actual copyright 'protection' back towards economically defensible and efficient levels.
One might feel there is still wrongness in piracy: that it is unfair, that some pay and others get things for free. But there is a very substantial amount of free-choice here: people are not at all strictly forced to pay and strictly prevented from free access. People can make a choice.
This seems like it might be, or at least suggest, a rather more functional kind of market than the standard conception. Instead of access being set bluntly and by guesswork by governmental law, it is decided by each individual according to their particular circumstances.
Business is only able to sell copies at monopoly prices because the government gives them that ability through copyright law -- copyright is effectively a negative tax, a subsidy: the government gives businesses money the free market would not otherwise provide.
Since current copyright terms are almost certainly, in general, too large, piracy is working as a corrective: it brings actual copyright 'protection' back towards economically defensible and efficient levels.
One might feel there is still wrongness in piracy: that it is unfair, that some pay and others get things for free. But there is a very substantial amount of free-choice here: people are not at all strictly forced to pay and strictly prevented from free access. People can make a choice.
This seems like it might be, or at least suggest, a rather more functional kind of market than the standard conception. Instead of access being set bluntly and by guesswork by governmental law, it is decided by each individual according to their particular circumstances.