I know I shouldn't but I'm going to add a small two cents in here.

I pirate games. Sometimes, if I know the game is good, I'll buy the physical copy and then pirate a digital copy(which technically is legal).

If the game is questionable, or I don't know much about it, I will pirate it, try it, and if it's good, buy it.

Examples

I was broke as fuck last year. We've all been there, where you don't have a good goddamn dime to spend on what you want, only what you actually need. At that time I had just got turned on to Dark Souls, I never knew anything about it beforehand. I pirated it, and played the shit out of it, 140 hours or so.

About a month ago I finally got myself in a more financially stable situation, where I could actually buy things I wanted. I bought Dark Souls, Minecraft, Arma 2, X-Com, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and a few others... Every single one of them I pirated beforehand to try it out. Most of them I put 50 hours or more into over the course of time that I had only the pirated version, and knowing I would lose all that progress I still chose to support the developers and buy their games.

Not everyone who pirates is a dick. Such things are not meant for the sole purpose of stealing, but rather the distribution of ideas, opinions, and on occasion, software to try out. Any cracked game you find will always have the same message on the installation or download page.

"IF YOU LIKE THE GAME, SUPPORT THE DEVELOPERS AND BUY IT."

So, in conclusion. Piracy itself is not an issue, the issue is the individual who pirates. More than likely, given a opportunity, those people you speak of would steal it right from a store if they could.

Those people are shunned by the pirate community.

TL;DR - Piracy itself is not evil, it's how you use it. Just like how a gun is not a ambassador of the murdering of innocents, it depends on how you use it. Piracy itsself really doesn't matter, because the individual you speak of would still find a way to steal it.

and they get paid before the movie even launches in cinemas...

That's not true. People like that generally have a set commission/wage. The people that depend on the grossing are the high end actors (who have a clause for like 3% of the gross in their contract or something, which amounts to a lot of money honestly) and obviously the directors/producers. But a majority of profits goes to the studio which owns the whole operations (Warner Bros, Paramount, etc)
But piracy generally only hurts DVD sales anyway. I would much rather pay and see a good movie on the silver screen than pirate it, piracy comes when it doesn't play anywhere anymore and it's not on Netflix. And DVD profits go to the studio anyway. Piracy doesn't hurt actors or producers or the little guys, only the big companies.

Not... really... do you think they would be paid more if more people bought the movie? That's rather naive of you to think that. Their wages are set from the get go and they're independent of how well the movie sells. They can get raises, sure, but that's more of a seniority thing, and mostly independent of sales.

how about you do some research then talk to me. Because I've talked with the people who do all that for a living and no the actors CONTRACTS set the amount that they will receive not the sales, same with the big wigs. Most of the little people are paid on a sliding scale, yes they get minimum wage, but that is grossly under what they should be paid. Which is where movie and home copies come in to play.

A pirated game is NOT a lost sale to a producer, because it's a logical fallacy to assume that the pirate would have bought the product. This is a common misconception that needs to be stomped out.

This is the worst fucking argument I've heard, how the fuck do we know if someone would have not bought a game if he didn't pirate it? Because he said so? Or inst it more likely people say this because they want to justify the fact that they are stealing. A game is a product, if you want it, buy it, or fucking don't. this is the way the world works.

Actually no. Unfortunately the world doesn't work like this. It should, but it doesn't.

Yeah i phrased that bit wrong didn't I

Yeah a bit I think.

Still valid post though.

Yes it is.

No, not EVERY pirated game or movie is a lost sale. But a good percentage is. Even if number of people who'd buy the game if they had no other option is as low as 10% at the launch, if a game gets pirated million times, that is hundred thousand lost sales, or close to half a million lost.
And what it really hurts is sale of discounted games.

You're pulling that number out of your ass. I can make up statistics to support my arguments, but I choose not to. If a pirate downloads a game illegally, then he/she didn't give enough of a fuck about the game itself to pay for it. Every game I've pirated, I wouldn't have bought for any price. Games that I care about like Skyrim or Borderlands or a plethora of other games, I payed for.

For those of us who didn't pass reading with comprehension at fourth grade level:
I didn't GIVE any statistics. That is why I said "even if". For those of us who don't understand what that means it means "For example"
And second, that's nice for you. Unfortunately that's not how actual research works. What you are saying is anecdotal and only applies to you. And its also bullshit. Because, unless you are extremely different from every other person in the world, if you only got to play games you can actually pay and didn't have any other option to get them, you'd be buying more.
What happens now is you go "I REALLY want this game, and its awesome, so I'll buy it!" and you do. But when game comes along that you kinda want to play "Oh well, I'll just download this one and I'll spend my money on (insert something you want but can't get for free)".
That is because you have an option to not buy it and still get it. If you didn't have an option, you would weigh in wanting that game vs. wanting something else, and sometimes decide to buy the game. Maybe not much more often, but occasionally.