I don’t see the difference between the two things you just described, no… except for the circuitousness of the path of the profit/value generation. The end result is the same. But the argument you’re making also makes a huge amount of assumptions about the individual versus about engagement in piracy by society in general. On the micro scale versus the macro scale. Is piracy of a particular piece of media ethical as an individual versus is piracy of a particular piece of media ethical at scale. The crux of your argument seems to be the value generation of “word-of-mouth“. So now you’re just arguing a matter of degrees and pedagogy. So you’re not really arguing about capitalism or piracy at all, now you’re arguing about passing undeserved value, and the methods by which that is done and how piracy is being co-opted via capitalism.